From Lake Champlain to Long Island Sound Clementine and Hummingbird Find New Home
Jeffrey Mayer, May 18, 2018
As I walked through Plattsburgh’s Farmers’ Market on opening day last Saturday I was not surprised to find incredible jams from Bonnie and Robert Gonyo’s in West Chazy or bread from the Rivera family’s Triple Green Jade Farm in Willsboro or maple syrup from the Parker Maple Farm in Canton. Shane Dutil of D&D Meats was there with his beef jerky and kielbasa.
 
I had forgotten, however, that this is the Farmers’ and Crafters’ Market. Here I found the Adirondack Wood Turner, a family affair making wooden train sets, and Kathy Craig’s delicate jewelry with fine gemstones.
 
Walking through the pavilion at the Durkee Street parking lot I found myself coming back to two paintings hanging on the wall, a clementine and a pomegranate. Each of them made my mouth water.
 
On my third trip, as I stood in front of the clementine, I found myself standing next to Connie Cassevaugh. At first I thought she was a customer.
 
“Can’t you just taste it?” I asked.
“Thank you,” Connie said.
 
“Are you the artist?” I looked at her in astonishment.
 
“And the gallery owner,” Connie said with a warm smile. She introduced me to her sister, Susan, who with Connie opened The Gallery in Rouses Point this past year.
Susan, too, is an artist and showed me small prints of a hummingbird that took my breath away. I have been mad about hummingbirds since one discovered a butterfly bush on the porch of our house in Bovina, New York many years ago.
 
On my fourth trip. We struck a deal. And on my fifth – at 2 pm as the Farmers’ and Crafters’ Market closed and I was ready to drive home to my family on Long Island Sound – I returned to pick up my clementine and hummingbird.
 
They now hang in my office where each morning they make me smile. The clementine makes my mouth water. And the hummingbird sends me back to a warm sunny afternoon in upstate New York around 1995.