This site was created to give me a space to talk about my most current art or craft creations and showcase my community work and political, social, and historical activities.
It is also a place for me to express my love of writing, painting, photography, crafts, gardening, floral arranging, history, decorating, design, and collecting. I update about two to four times each month and also am active on Twitter, Instagram, Flickr, and Facebook.
I live in downtown Farmington, New Hampshire, in a wonderful house built in 1870, that my husband, Stan, and I are making a home. It has many features and character left from early periods and we built a three story addition on the back of the house, doubling the footprint, but mirroring the original house exterior, so you can’t tell the addition wasn’t always a part of the house. We often have several animals companions. Right now we are lucky enough to have Bram & Quince, a bonded Chihuahua pair, we adopted last year and two aquarium habitats.
Our gardens are a passion of mine. When we started out 
we basically had nothing to work with in the space. A few trees and crabgrass were the only things in the yard. Over the past two decades we’ve landscaped the entire yard, created and installed two arbors, and put in a picket fence out front. I’ve added a diverse collection of trees, shrubs, and flowers, that keep the space blooming for most of our growing season. Gardening is in my blood!
I always felt like an artist. I focus mostly on visual and sculptural art; I have little formal training. My painting and drawing often pull from impressionist, expressionist, abstract, cubist, and surrealist movements. Much of my work work pulls directly from real life. It tends to be bright and colorful. I usually choose to use bold colors and large strokes or marks, which create a sense of movement. I tend to use, acrylic, chalk, pencil and oil pastel, for most of my work, but I also work with watercolors, ink, and markers. I love collage and mixed media. I don’t often follow conventional modes of painting, drawing, and sculpture. It is important to me that my pieces bring out feeling; I really don’t care if they represent a recognizable, tangible form in our realm. Art is about exploring yourself and showing others how you perceive the world. It is about inviting other people into parts of your mind and memory, that normally can’t be seen.
Half of my writing tends to pull from my family and my observations from childhood and my teen years in the South. The other half generally covers social ills, social justice, and past and current social and political topics. Sometimes love and friendship makes an appearance, as does my love of nature and our host and mother, Earth.
My other creative outlets are hand crafting, photography, and web design. My local art activities include Art Esprit and several local Poet & Writer Projects.
I am currently the Curator of the Farmington Historical Society & Museum of Farmington NH History, where I’m able to put to use my logistical, research, and organizational skills. As of 
2022 I’ve been a member for about decade and a half and I’m happy to aid the online efforts of the Society, spearheading the building Farmington’s undocumented historical record, identifying and researching the vast trove of untended collected objects, as well as creating the online museum, and adding new items to it for the community to enjoy. The Society is celebrating their seventy year anniversary this year!
With all the bad news in the world it is easy to feel nothing is maki
ng a difference, but that is one reason I contribute monthly to the Puddledock Press. The Puddledock Press is our local “good news” newspaper. We focus on the all things going on in our community that add to it in a positive way. Events, community building, school activities, non-profits, speakers, local art, fun photos, and historical retrospectives are just some of the things the Puddledock focuses on. 2019 is the Puddledock’s forty year anniversary!
We used keep an Adopt-a-Spot in town. It was in the median strip at the
juncture of Spring Street and Route 11, two well traveled streets. It was huge! Twenty five feet long and ten feet wide! Getting compost into the site and digging all the holes for the plants were the hardest parts, as the site had never before been fully planted, so there was nothing in the median but the six inches of mulch, tarps, and sand. As the years past we had many, many perennials that pop up each year and two large containers that we filled with annuals. We also put decorative rocks along the entire border on each side. Sometimes it is hard to keep up with all the tending of the space, but it is always rewarding in the end! We stopped tending it in 2019.
I maintain active involvement with the NH Progressives and the Farmington Democrats
and was Chair of the local committee. I was Chair of the Tri Town Dems, of Milton, New Durham, and Farmington. I was also a member at large on the Strafford County Democratic Committee four times. My heart is with Progressives, the Greens, and the DSA.
In the past, I was the Chair of the Farmington Community Gardens for five years. I also used to be an Officer of the Friends of the Goodwin Library for many years, and served as a Trustee of the Goodwin Library board for a number of years. I love libraries!
Thank you for stopping by.
Kyle Leach hptreedecor@metrocast.net
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