A sculpture by Gage Prentiss on the lower fields of Fruitlands Museum. (Photos by Lisa Aciukewicz)

Each time I come upon it, I am struck anew by its singular beauty. The hills roll gently to the bottom of the valley, and beyond are the mountains. Nestled into each curve of the terrain is a charming building, and encircling all are tall pines and cragged old apple trees.

But there's more than beauty here; there's a sense of the past, stilled in time and yet very much alive. The landscape and the buildings hold stories of people who lived with this land, finding physical and spiritual sustenance in it. Outdoor sculptures, both permanent and temporary, reflect artists' visions of connections to nature. This is Fruitlands Museum, one of the gems that make Harvard such a special place. Fruitlands opened for the 2011 season on April 15 to many changes, both in its structures and in its programs.

The first thing that strikes the returning visitor is that Joseph Wheelwright's Tree People are gone. But in their place are 19 sculptures of different sizes and materials, situated around the buildings and out on the trails. Visitors are invited to vote for their favorite piece in this Art in Nature exhibit, Fruitlands' first juried sculpture competition. In the field to the right of the entrance is a spectacular structure of undulating thin white arches, holding boulders within them. This is Andy Moerlein's "The Wave" of which he says, "The Wave is a necessary inversion of subsurface water: deep beneath erupts."

Down the hill a large black bird perches in a black tree, its nest below it. The artist, Gage Prentiss, welcomes the point where, "I can stand back and enjoy the many new lives, emotions, and stories the viewer brings to the object."

Andy Moerlein’s sculpture “The Wave” sits in the upper field of Fruitlands Museum and is visible from Prospect Hill Road.

At the lowest point of the valley, outside the farmhouse, leaves of copper hang down from the old mulberry tree, the wind slowly spinning them and at times twirling them frantically. Each leaf has a word on either side of it, words from a poem by W.S. Merwin, a copy of which hangs on the trunk of the mulberry. This is "Poetree: Recognitions," by Mark Schafer. In addition to being one of the pieces in the competition, Schafer's installation is also the subject of a poetry contest. Visitors are invited to create a Found Poem, using at least 18 of the words on the leaves of the sculpture. (Guidelines are available at the farmhouse.) Guided hikes will be held each Saturday at 3 p.m. during May and June to view all of the sculptures in the Art in Nature exhibit.

Wayside, formerly the education center, is now the Wayside Visitors Center. Partitions were removed to make the front of the building an open, inviting space. On its walls is a timeline, a sort of "first draft" of what will eventually be installed. Each wall tells the history of one aspect of the Museum. Below a horizontal line are the general events of the time period, while the entries above the line depict the story of what was happening at Fruitlands Museum. The beginning of the Museum's story is the farmhouse, built in 1826, to which Bronson Alcott moved his family in 1843 to experiment in transcendental living at the place he called Fruitlands. In 1915 Clara Endicott Sears looked down at the abandoned house from the terrace of her summer home on Prospect Hill and the thought came to her, "I must save it." Next comes a wall of Shaker history, beginning below the line with Mother Ann Lee and above the line with Clara Sears' acquisition of the Shaker office building in 1926. A third wall features the stages in the acquisition of the Native American collection. Information about the Art Gallery and about Clara Sears herself complete the visitor's orientation.

The room at the back of Wayside is exhibit space and currently houses "Up North, Down East: the Luminescent Landscape" by Jill Pottle, Fruitlands' 2010 Artist in Residence. A quick impression is of the wonderful color in the oil paintings, particularly the blue sky and play of clouds in all of the works. The paintings done during Pottle's residency—"Vista at Fruitlands" and "Upward View"—are the focal point of the display. The latter painting wonderfully captures the magical connection between the landscape and the buildings at Fruitlands.

Miss Sears, in talking about Bronson Alcott, said that if the experiment conducted at the Farmhouse was a failure, it was a failure only "in the means of expression and not in the ideal which inspired it. Humanity must ever reach out towards a New Eden." She reveals her mission in founding the Museum: "In this material age we cannot afford to lose any details of so unique and picturesque a memory as that of A. Bronson Alcott and the 'Con-Sociate Family' at Fruitlands."

It is striking how faithful Chief Executive Officer Tim Firment and his staff are to Miss Sears' vision. They are continually creating new programs which counter "this material age" and bring visitors closer to a connection with nature, heritage, and art.

Today, many of the changes at Fruitlands reflect a shift in programming toward what Firment calls family learning. Museums can no longer educate by inviting individuals to silently view paintings and artifacts hanging on walls and enclosed in cases. Firment believes it is best for families to learn together, engaging in hands-on experiences that help all members gain a broader understanding of the connection between people and nature. One might say that Bronson Alcott was ahead of his time as an advocate of family learning. Certainly he, his wife, and four daughters educated each other about how far the ideals of Transcendentalism could be applied to sustainable living. It was certainly a hands-on experience for all of them.

At the Shaker office building, gardens have been installed by local volunteers who researched and designed the gardens; they started by learning what products the Shakers sold and in what different forms a certain crop appeared for commercial use. Then they laid out authentic gardens to grow these crops. To the side of the building is an herb garden, its quadrants separated by bluestone, which mirrors the original path to the house, taken from Shaker Village. Apothecary roses line the back fence of the Shaker building; the petals of these roses would have been (and will be!) distilled into rosewater, one of the reliable sources of income for the Shakers. As well, the roses can be used in baking. Beyond the fence are rows of stakes showing the extensive fields of crops that would have been planted by the Shakers. Families visiting the Museum can learn together how entrepreneurial the Shakers were as they worked with nature and connected to the land.

The interior and exterior of the recently completed longhouse constructed at Fruitlands as part of the Native American exhibit. The longhouse was the shelter of choice of many native peoples of this region.

Another example of family learning is an outside education space on the grounds of the Native American building. This is a longhouse, which replaces the wigwam as being a larger and more authentic structure used by Native Americans of the Northeast. Visitors can enter and sit in the Longhouse to experience how the Native Americans actually lived. The structure was created by Jeff Kaelin of Primitive Technologies. Its "bones" are 31 cedar saplings, bound together by tree bark. The covering is made of phragmites, those very tall reeds with feathery tops that one sees along roadside wetlands. A dugout and grinding wheel near the longhouse will help families experience the daily life of a Native American. An example of a sustainable garden, a "three sisters garden," will be installed by local volunteers. Beans, corn, and squash, basics of the Thanksgiving shared by Natives and Pilgrims, will be grown.

The Art Gallery is getting a whole new look, inside and out. The archives and collection storage have been moved off site, where they are housed in a state-of-the-art building. Items will go back and forth between there and Fruitlands and people can make arrangements to do research at the site. The gallery is being re-roofed and will have a new entrance at the side of the building, where a pergola structure will remind one of the Pergolas, summer home of Miss Sears. New handicap access and parking will be completed by early June, when the building will reopen to the public. Inside, visitors will not only view the paintings in the Fruitlands collection, but will also be invited to experiment with painting their own work of art.

A new program this summer, in keeping with this hands-on approach, is the Living History camps being offered in June and July for young people in grades 8 to 12. In the Shaker workshop participants will choose a Shaker identity, study the original journals of that person, and create authentic monologues and set pieces that they will perform for Fruitlands visitors during the summer months. In the Transcendentalist week, journals of the Alcotts will be studied, as well as Louisa May's "Transcendental Wild Oats." Again, participants will perform for visitors to the Museum at times throughout the summer.

Firment says that Fruitlands is always asking, "What would Miss Sears do today?" He says, "She was always on the cusp on newness." It is clear that the Museum is keeping that legacy alive. Volunteers are always welcome—to bring a new idea, to create a new space or program, to help strive for that "New Eden."