'Sky Garden' A modern art exhibit

Support 'Sky Garden' & Double Your Donation:  $1520 in matching donations still available. Thank you everyone for your ongoing support. We ARE making a difference with your help we can help even more, from children with complicated medical issues, to individuals with paralysis and traumatic brain injury to those with memory challenges. We provide a sanctuary for the care giver and their loved ones. 

Northeast Arc has become a sponsor for the event and donated $2000.  Thank you so much!!

For Dates please visit rest-stop-ranch website

Bring the lights of a modern art exhibit by Matt Belge to Rest-Stop-Ranch this winter season. We are looking to raise $10,000 to support the event this winter.  We currently have a matching doner for up to the first $2000 in donations. Act now and Double your donation!!

Our Story: 'Sky Garden' — A Sanctuary of Light and Tranquility

Rest-Stop-Ranch is a non-profit in Topsfield, MA. We provide programs to support for long-term caregivers and their loved ones and offer universally accessible garden trails and a botanical garden with hundreds of cultivars, open to the public year-round. We became a non-profit in 2019 and have been extending our outreach to include everyone, with the intent to provide support for anyone who needs respite, from families caring for children with complicated medical issues to anyone with a desire and need to find time to engage with nature in a nurturing, open environment.

This winter, Rest-Stop-Ranch is thrilled to collaborate with renowned light artist Matt Belge to present 'Sky Garden', a series of evening light environments transforming our accessible outdoor grounds.'Sky Gardens' will feature powerful, industrial-grade video projectors casting extremely high-resolution images of magnificent flowers and plants onto the natural landscape. The goal is to create a peaceful, meditative, and inclusive environment—a "virtual garden" designed to be enjoyed during the fall and winter, when the living flowers of Massachusetts are no longer in bloom.

Crucially, these events will be open to the public free of charge.

A Garden Made Just for Them

Rest-Stop-Ranch’s mission is to provide respite, recreation, and sanctuary to long-term caregivers and their loved ones living with chronic illness and disability. Our accessible gardens are a core part of this mission.

'Sky Garden' is a unique extension of our commitment, offering a therapeutic, wheelchair-accessible experience where guests can be immersed in the tranquility of a garden made just for them, regardless of weather or season. Your donation will help us bring this beautiful, healing art to our community.

About the Artist: Matt Belge

Matt Belge is an artist and engineer with a lifelong fascination for light, inspired by his early experiences with stained-glass windows and candlelight. After receiving a BS in Electrical Engineering and pursuing graduate studies at Mass College of Art, Matt began his artistic career creating immersive environments using only light as his "material."

Inspired by light artists like James Turrell and Robert Irwin, his work focuses on creating serene, meditative spaces that invite inner introspection. He has progressed to large-scale projects, including:

Common/Light (City of Cambridge Millennium Celebration) – enormous search lights creating canopies of light over the city.

First Light (Boston's First Night Celebration) – computer-controlled theater lights invoking the aurora borealis on a large church facade.

Exhibitions at the ARS ELECTRONICA (Austria) and the DECORDOVA MUSEUM (MA).

Matt is now thrilled to partner with Rest-Stop-Ranch to bring his beautiful, large-scale work to our long-term caregivers and their loved ones.

See the Vision (Images have been auto enhanced by iphone camera, for the actual human eye they are good just not that good. got to love when tech changes stuff on ya)

Use Of Funds

Your generous contribution will directly defer the costs of putting on the 'Sky Gardens' show and ensuring a high-quality experience for all our guests.

UseFunds

- Outdoor projector x2      $5,000
- Event setup                      $1,500
- Resident Artist Stipend  $1,500
- Outdoor display screen  $1,000
- Event marketing             $1,000

TOTAL GOAL                 $10,000

Note: The Resident Artist Stipend covers Matt Belge's time and effort to create and prepare the extremely high-resolution images that will be projected.