First Event February 22: Meet Easton Naturalist, Artist and Author James Prosek
Running a small-town coffeeshop, we’re exposed every day to fascinating folks in our community.
An Olympic luger, a nonfiction-thriller writer, the creator of a leading clean-beauty makeup brand, a Barolo-trained prodigy chef, a designer of couture wedding gowns, a former big city Mayor, a painter of artwork collected by Beyoncé — they’re all among our Greiser’s regulars.
Easton is a hive of accomplished people with unique talents. And if you frequent our shop, there’s a chance you’ve enjoyed a conversation with one of them on your visits here.
Ever since our November 1, 2018, opening day, we’ve aspired to provide a place for all the interesting and interested people in our community to connect. Lately, we’ve been thinking about how to do that in more deliberate ways.
So, we’re excited to launch Local Wisdom, a new occasional after-hours event series at Greiser’s. On these evenings, we’ll provide small bites, beverages (non-alcoholic, but byob is permitted), and a relaxed forum where you can get to know your neighbors, including some of Easton’s most creative and innovative residents. Each event will include a short “lecture” — think TEDTalk or PechaKucha presentation — and plenty of time for conversation with our featured guests — all of whom will be plucked right from our customer list.
We’re kicking off the series on the evening of February 22 with distinguished naturalist, artist, and writer James Prosek.
We’ve asked James to come tell us about his part in the exhibit “Fragile Earth: The Naturalist Impulse in Contemporary Art,” which debuted at the Florence Griswold Museum in Old Lyme in 2019 and was updated for a 15-week show that closed last month at the Brandywine River Museum in Chadds Ford, Pa.
“Drawing helps you internalize experience and makes you a better, more acute observer of the natural world,” Prosek told an interviewer at the Smithsonian American Art Museum seven years ago. He said his work challenges the way “we are so eager as humans to label things. … Nature is much more complex than the labels that we put on it.”
In the catalogue for the recent Fragile Earth show, the Brandywine described James as a “contemporary John James Audubon … who considers how we engage nature both scientifically and artistically.”
The museum, famous for being the home of Andrew Wyeth’s paintings, commissioned Prosek to hand-paint an on-site mural depicting the region’s flora and fauna and included in its exhibit Prosek’s largest outdoor installation to date — a painting that “considers the symbolism of the U.S. flag in relation to nature” and “illustrates the fact that animals inhabit ecosystems independent of geographic boundaries between states or countries.”
James will join us from 6:30 – 8:30 pm on Wednesday, February 22, for a casual conversation about his work, the recent exhibit, and the “naturalist impulse” that informs his art and his life in Easton.
Space at Greiser’s is limited. Advanced registration is required. Tickets, $20, are available in-store or online here.
To learn about future events in our Local Wisdom series, please subscribe on our homepage to our email newsletter, the Flying A.