On a whim, they followed the roadside sign.
Dan Cook, his aunt and his uncle were driving along the coast of Maine, taking in the rugged beauty of Arcadia National Park. All at once, they came across a sign on the road, pointing into the forested area with one word written on it — gardens.
Their adventurous curiosity paid off. Down a gravel path they found the Asticou Azalea Garden, a pristine Japanese-style plot transposed to Maine. Royal azaleas, torch azaleas and pinkshell azaleas abounded around ponds and streams, while shrubs and trees had just started turning their autumn shades of red, orange and yellow.
[sc:text-divider text-divider-title=”Story continues below gallery” ]Click here to purchase photos from this gallery
“It was one of my favorite spots. I just looked around and thought, ‘Oh my gosh, we’re in heaven,’” Cook said.
Cook has an eye for discovering beauty in the unexpected. The Franklin artist’s photography captures some of America’s most stunning natural areas, uncovered during trips to as many of the country’s national parks as he could reach on the east and west coasts.
He will be the focus of a new exhibition, “National Parks,” now showing through June 24 at Ascension Fine Arts in Nashville.
From the quiet majesty of the redwood forests to the crashing waves on Maine’s rugged coastline, Cook’s experiences only reinforce the uniqueness of our parks to audiences here in Indiana.
“What’s the most fun is finding something that you didn’t even know about. It wasn’t in the books, you just run across it,” he said.
Inside Cook’s Franklin home, the vistas and landscapes that he had uncovered over the past six years cover nearly every available space on the wall.
Skies stretch in cloud-flecked blue above towering rock formations from Arizona, Colorado and Utah. The grandiose Grand Canyon unfolds in multicolored splendor. Trains curve around precarious mountain tracks. The photographs, printed on canvas, come from a trip he took covering 6,000 miles across the American West. He was able to capture 12 national parks and 20 national monuments.
“Up until six years ago, I had never traveled anywhere in my life,” Cook said.
Cook, a 1967 graduate of Franklin Community High School, had worked for more than 40 years in the landscape business, so he understands the beauty of nature. He had owned a landscaping design, nursery and garden center in Columbus with his wife, Sally, and retired in 2013 years ago to focus exclusively on his art and photography.
After his initial trip, he wanted to see more. In 2017, he traveled with his aunt and uncle, Bonnie and Dennis Brown, along the West Coast. They started in San Francisco, venturing to Yosemite National Park before traveling to sites along the Northern California, Oregon and Washington coastlines.
He perched over the Golden Gate Bridge, capturing a wondrous shot of the bay. Standing under towering sequoia trees in Redwood National Park, his photographs convey the sheer scale of the huge trees. At Olympia National Park, he positioned his camera perfectly on the atmospheric rock-strewn beaches and rain forests of the Cascade Mountains.
“It was green, green everywhere, just like being in a tropical Amazon jungle,” he said.
The following year, the trio mapped out a trip along the East Coast. They stopped at historically significant locations to see the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall in Philadelphia, and toured the Statue of Liberty and the National September 11 Memorial in New York.
Further on, Cook captured photographs of old-time fishing boats in Gloucester, Massachusetts, the Puritan architecture in Salem, and the rugged natural wonders of Acadia National Park and surrounding areas.
The photographs from these most recent trips will make up the majority of “National Parks,” at Ascension Fine Arts. Cook has been showing his work in the Brown County gallery since late 2018, and has found success selling his work to the tourists who come to visit throughout the year.
Coinciding with the opening of the exhibition today is Nashville’s Art Walk, an open house-style reception featuring 12 galleries throughout the village.
And already, he’s planning his next foray to the national parks. Piggybacking on a trip to Idaho for his nephew’s wedding, at which he is the photographer, he plans to take trips to Glacier, Grand Teton and Yosemite national parks, among other locations.
“I’ve been reading and finding specific spots to take pictures. That’s what I do — map it out, and know when we enter a park, the six or seven best spots to take a photograph. I try to do my homework before,” he said.
[sc:pullout-title pullout-title=”If you go” ][sc:pullout-text-begin]
"National Parks"
What: A collection of photographs taken by Franklin resident Dan Cook in his travels to national parks and monuments throughout the U.S.
Where: Ascension Fine Arts, 61 W. Main St., Nashville
When: Today through Jun 24
Gallery hours: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday, Tuesday, Thursday through Saturday; noon to 5 p.m. Sunday. Closed Wednesdays.
Reception: An opening reception will be held from 4 to 7 p.m. today, part of Nashville’s Art Walk event featuring 12 local galleries open late to showcase different artists.
Information: b3.bussert.com
[sc:pullout-text-end]
