WHITE STADIUM (5)

By: Lawry Hutcheson
March 3, 2026

This series of WHITE STADIUM linocut prints, created during 2025 by HILOBROW friend and brother-in-law Lawry Hutcheson, are a subset of his LINOCUT 2025 series.

© Lawrence Hutcheson. Click for closer view.

30 May 2025

I made the sketch for this latest print in early May from the lower branches of a small oak tree I climbed to get a view over the fence and across the empty basketball courts to where the West Grandstand was being gutted. They’ve braced up the exterior wall (which they plan to keep and incorporate into the new stadium) and were tearing away the interior structure and seating.

Things were coming down fast; whole sections would disappear as I drew; an excavator dragging its claw down a row of metal bleachers and coming away with a sheaf. A crew on a cherrypicker was coming behind, more slowly, using handheld jackhammers to smooth out the surface of the wall. I went up to draw a few afternoons in a row. I don’t use photographs and was worried the leaves would fill out and obscure my view before I finished the sketch. It was interesting to feel the pace of the things: The opening of the leaves, the destruction of the stands, the conservation of the wall, and my drawing; all moving forward together at different rates.

It’s also interesting to feel the space; A couple Sundays ago I was setting out cones for our frisbee game on the Playstead field behind the stadium site and having trouble squeezing in between the Merrimack Cricket League game, the BUDA Youth League, and The First Tee Youth Golf Program; A stark contrast to the vast, deserted, emptiness of the construction site immediately adjacent. Maybe instead of using that space for one professional-grade field and a huge stadium, the community would benefit more from incorporating it back into the Playstead? That was the original plan and the reality up until White Stadium was built in 1947. It would add needed field space for BPS and community use, and could also include a track, some bleachers and a building for BPS locker rooms, athletic offices and public bathrooms. An idea.

On an artistic note, this May print was a stretch and not entirely successful. I struggled to get the different layers to read and work together: the exuberance of the opening leaves and the emptiness of the basketball court and the detailed structure of the ruined stadium. A lot to contend with. Foliage is also a new challenge. The earlier prints all feature bare branches, which lend themselves to the stark, positive-negative of this sort of printmaking.

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WHITE STADIUM (5)

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