HUNTINGTON -- The almost-finished sensory trail and sensory butterfly garden at the Huntington Museum of Art just got a nice touch -- a wild touch of home.
Renowned Huntington-based wildlife and stamp illustrator, Chuck Ripper was commissioned to illustrate nine pictures of the flora and fauna that folks will see, hear and feel along the trail.
Margaret Mary Layne, executive director of the museum and a lifelong Chuck Ripper fan, said it's great to be able to integrate his art work onto the new trail.
"He's such a treasure that we have in the area," Layne said. "A lot of people know his work but just don't know that he is from the area."
For those who don't know his work, just pick up a wildlife stamp or an L.L. Bean hunting and fishing catalog and chances are you will run into Ripper's work.
A Pennsylvania native who moved to Huntington in 1953 with his wife Virginia, Ripper has created 575 designs for wildlife stamps for the National Wildlife Federation, has designed a total of 80 stamps for the United States Postal Service, and has been painting L.L. Bean catalogs off and on for decades.
For the museum, Ripper drew colorful life-like illustrations of Sassafras leaves, rough-hewn Hackberry bark that people will touch along the trail, as well as such birds as the Towhee, the Black-Capped Chickadee, and a number of butterflies including the Spicebush, Mourning Cloak and the peculiar Question Mark butterfly.
Those paintings will be turned into reproductions at information stations set around the Steelman Butterfly Garden, named in honor of long-time museum volunteer, Nada Steelman, and along the quarter-mile-long trail that's funded in part by the Teubert Foundation for the Blind.
Hoped to be opened by late summer, the trail and garden completes the third and final phase of the museum's trails improvement projects.
The first two phases were completed over the past couple summers with the aid of AmeriCorps and other volunteers.
The museum's trails have been closed since Feb. 18 when work started on the project that has been years in the making under the direction of state Sen. Bob Plymale, chairman of the museum board's trails committee.
Mary said they're excited for the trail and garden, located near the front of museum property, to be open allowing for people regardless of disability to enjoy nature and for everyone to learn about the power of the senses of sight, smell, hearing and touch.
After meandering through the butterfly garden designed by Bill Mills, and through a rotating sculpture garden, people will be able to move along the quarter-mile-long sensory trail that will be complete with stations at which people learn first-hand about their senses.
For instance at the olfactory station folks will be able to sniff a box full of fresh herbs and at the hearing station be able to turn an adjustable ear-horn toward the woods amplifying nature's cornucopia of sounds.
"It's really in depth what people can learn about the senses," Layne said.
The trail upgrade also permanently moves the trailhead from the current entry, tucked out of sight on the side of the building, to the front part of the property giving the trails, being renovated by Hager Construction, greater visibility to the public.
And the new garden and sensory trail will adjoin the other loop trails on the museum property through a new primitive trail called the Dr. Raymond L. Busbee Connector, named for Busbee a volunteer on the trails for many years.
"It's going to be very visible to the community which is a great thing," said John Gillispie, public relations director for the museum. "Even after all of these years there's a lot of people that don't know we have trails."
7-day Archive
