Photos Related to the Jonah Vision

                      Boggy Meadow in November                                               Boggy Meadow in Winter

The view from the top of the retired Middletown landfill is spectacular.  Here you see the Mattabesset River at an area known in colonial times as “Boggy Meadow” or “The Great Swamp.”  This area is ideal for canoeing, kayaking, and birdwatching, but it is almost entirely unknown to residents of Middletown and surrounding communities.. 

		Boggy Meadow in June		Wesleyan summer interns study the aquatic life in the Coginchaug River under the direction of Professor Barry Chernoff.

A Cooper’s Hawk patiently waits for prey.  The North End Peninsula and surround marshlands are home to many osprey and deer.  On the right, a pile of woodchips steaming in mid-winter shows the release of stored solar energy.  Now these gases and heat are being wasted, but they could be captured and put to use.

                        Launch Site in November                                                            Launch in Winter

The Jonah Center is working with the City of Middletown to construct a kayak and canoe launch site at this location, seen in late November and late January, 2005.  The Mattabesset River is just visible in the background of both pictures.  A lot of discarded metal, tires, and other debris in the area will be removed by a team of volunteers. 

The Samson Environmental Center at Darrow School in New Lebanon, New York, practices the kind of education that the Jonah Center wants to offer.  This private school (formerly a Shaker village) teaches students by involving them in practical problems of the community.  Students manage The Living Machine (right) that treats the school’s sewage by means of microbes living on the roots of aquatic plants growing in tanks.

Bioshelters, Inc. in Amherst, Massachusetts, demonstrates how the waste water from farmed tilapia can provide nutrients to grow organic arugula in the “greenhouse” located directly above the fish tanks. The Jonah Center plans to raise native fish such as Pumpkinseed and Sunfish and use the “fish waste” to grow organic produce.

 

A Wesleyan Architecture Course on "Green Buildings" concluded with the assignment to design and build a model of a possible Jonah Center Building.  This model by student Josh Aronson captures the "whale" or "fish" shape of a building that was a part of the initial Jonah Center inspiration."

These two environmental sculptures from the Laumeier Sculpture Museum in St. Louis will help you envision the sort of things we might build on the North End Peninsula. The work on the left is titled "Pass" by Meg Webster and features native Missouri plantings. On the right is "Cromlech Glen" by Beverly Pepper. We could build similar mounds, but we'd cover them with low-maintenance, native ground cover instead of the monoculture lawn used in the latter work.

Below are some other examples of environmental art of the kind we can envision for the Jonah Center.

“Stream Path” by Gilles Bruni and Marc Barbarit

“No More Milk and Cookies” (constructed from used tires) by Chakaia Booker

“Oak Stacks” by Andy Goldsworthy

“Jazz Man” by Andrew Leck

“River Surface” by Roy Stabb