Gathering Sap, 1947

Gone are the days when it was common to see men in woolen pants and snow boots emptying wooden sap buckets in Vermont’s sugarbush. The modern method of gathering sap involves miles and miles of blue plastic tubing, no oxen required. This day’s work, as Stephen Belaski captured it, shows the ideal weather conditions for the maple sap to be running – nights below freezing, and days above 32 degrees F.

A native of Bellows Falls, Vermont, a town on the banks of the Connecticut River, Stephen Belaski painted landscapes and rural scenes. Some art dealers claim that Belaski “was known to not sign every one of his works of art.” Fortunately, he did sign and date this canvas.

Belaski was well known in Rutland, Vermont because he was the artist commissioned to complete a series of paintings for the old post office in 1937. (It is now a federal courthouse and the post office has relocated.) The title of the six murals is Early History of Vermont. These were done as a project for TRAP (Treasury Relief Art Project).