BY MICHAEL CHAIKEN REPUBLICAN-AMERICAN
27
You could say the Spring Hill Arts Gathering is another step in the evolution of Stephanie Ingrassia’s residency in the town of Washington, Conn.
CONTRIBUTED
This will be the fourth year Spring Hill Vineyard in New Preston has hosted a cultural arts festival. This is a scene from a previous year’s edition.
The arts event, which returns for its fourth year this weekend and next, was the idea of Ingrassia, who co-founded Spring Hill Vineyard of New Preston in 2006 with her husband Tim.
As Stephanie explained it, the couple had been spending 30 years as weekenders, shuttling between Connecticut and their primary home in Brooklyn, New York.
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The result is both symbolic and produces plants with tangible uses, says jackie sumell (who does not capitalize her name), who conceived the project; plants with healing properties will be redistributed to people who need them through what sumell calls a “prisoner’s apothecary.” The solitary beds are eventually overrun with plant life, a visual representation of a world without prisons, an idea which forms the project’s core mission.
Typically a volunteer gardener on the outside will send a list of plants to an incarcerated gardener - the list provides plenty of options but is limited to what will thrive in the climate and season. They collaborate on a gardening plan and a calendar, often with a small floor plan filled in by the incarcerated gardener laying out the positioning of plants.