EENE VALLEY -- The lawn was freshly mown around the Corscaden Barn on an increasingly muggy Keene Valley day.

The insect kingdom was out in full force, and Harry Matthews swatted away while trying to delicately balance stones one upon the other in the garden and through the woods. The stone balances are a result of a 1998 summer journey through the Himalayas and a teaching stint in the Rhondda Valley of South Wales. Days off, he trekked Wales and Devon and Cornwall moors with his good friend Simon Preston.

In his book, "A Stone Balance: The Art of Harry Matthews," he writes: "We often found ourselves literally stumbling upon Neolithic sites -- stone circles and burial chambers amid the beautiful countryside, the strange craggy outcroppings, windswept and silent. Upon my return to the states, I went to visit my parents in the Adirondacks. One day, I was in the woods staring at a pile of stones and began to balance them one on top of the other until I was surrounded by a group of figures. The deep peace and the meditativeness I felt transported me back to the same sense of subtle connectedness, of spirit, I had felt in the wilds of the U.K., of the Himalayas."

EIGHT ARTISTS

"Harry finds stones, and he balances them," said Martha Corscaden. "They are all held up through balance and gravity. There are no pins or adhesives. They are outdoors stone sculptures that are very interesting. All of a sudden you see these little ancient prehistoric people. They are dotted around a few places in the valley."

Matthews is among eight artists -- Day Lee, Diane Brown, Zack Lobdell, Cinda Longstreth, Scott Renderer, Jodi Downs and Amy Fennelly -- in the summer's first exhibition at the Corscaden Barn.

"Most of them live here year-round or have come here for many years," Corscaden said. "Day Lee is the oldest artist. He showed here many years when my sister (noted artist Vry Roussin) was alive. He's a really skilled watercolorist and does traditional Adirondack watercolors as well as very vibrant and modern shapes and forms."

Lee's work includes landscapes of his life in New Mexico and paintings such as "Cave of the Yellow Horse," inspired by a trip to the Dordogne region of France.

Renderer, a 21st-century renaissance man -- actor, director and musician -- reveals another facet with his art.

"He's a multi-talented man. Last year, he did all these portraits," Corscaden said. "Now he has wonderful oil paintings, contemporary abstractions. He's created a sculpture from chairs as a kind of accent. It's large -- seven feet tall. It looks like a beaver dam made out of old broken chairs. It's kind of funny. Harry liked it."

VIBRANT LANDSCAPES

Fennelly's paper play creates fanciful collages such as "Through A Window," which features penguins in a tilted interior.

"She does paper collages that are landscapes. Some are traditional looking but filled with surprises. They are very rich and interesting pieces."

Longstreth was a contemporary of Roussin's.

"Cinda has shown here many years. She does very vibrant landscapes of the Adirondack Mountains primarily. Lobdell is a young artist who showed here 10 years ago in his teens and has excelled incredibly and does very contemporary work."