Walk inside the living landscape Olana forest painting on a cloudy March day, where trees have dropped their leaves in winter rest, their branches stark and gray against a white sky, and be part of Frederic Edwin Church's illusion.

Realize that a hemlock tree spread its roots deeply under the muddied path, but does not belong naturally, sitting squarely in the center of a swath of underbrush. Hudson River School artist Frederic E. Church planted it there as a dark juxtaposition against lighter tree barks. The lone white birch angled between two brown trees breaks up the perspective in Church's sculpture of his land, after his arthritic hands would no longer hold paintbrush to capture on canvas Catskill Mountains, rolling clouds, and Hudson River.

Nature paints her own picture, placing seedlings to grow where She knows they belong. Lined up straight and tall, these young trees have a perfect view of the River below and surrounding rolling Mountains. Trees obscure the view from any mortal human trying to see between their sturdy barks. They are the only reality in Church's illusion.

Walk further into his forest, where a sense of deep woods dampens the air, but with one more turn reveals this not really deep woods but only appearance. A few feet away grows a pasture for cows to graze.

Church planted trees where he thought they should go, creating a façade honoring his vision. Now the Reader's Digest foundation funded conservancy will cull Nature's work, reclaiming the land for tourists to have a clear view again of River and Mountains.

Church built Olana, fortress by the River, to own the place of his painted clouds, Hudson River and Catskills. He placed his Victorian-Persian palace high on a hill, so he could see across the River, where his friend, mentor and founder of the Hudson River School, artist Thomas Cole, lived in the city of Catskill. Painting about a half century after the American Revolution,

Thomas Cole left his British roots behind. He declared independence from the European style of painting, with wide brush strokes capturing glistening brooks, deep forest greens, and majestic Mountains, reverentially worshipping their beauty. Cole arrived in the Hudson River Valley after the Industrial Revolution marked the Catskills, where thruways and railroads brought people to work in factories. He led the way for Hudson River School artists to preserve their mythic vision of the Mountains.

The establishment of this uniquely American painting style was also followed by Sanford Robinson Gifford, who lived in the city of Hudson, up the road, past farms and fields, from Church's Olana. Gifford and other Hudson resident artists had a magnificent view of the River and Catskills from the Parade Hill levee, built in 1785. While foundries, factories, and railroad tracks obscured their view of the Catskills, they painted their landscapes as they wished them to be, as pristine façades, leaving out the pollution of industrialization.

Tour the city of Hudson where these artists lived more than 100 years ago.

Pretty little houses sit on postage-stamp size yards. There are families who have lived here for generations, and others who moved from larger cities to live where neighbors know each other.

Look a little closer at what seems on the surface to be idyllic, and notice that on each block some neighbors have stuck a "Save the Plant" sign into their neatly trimmed lawns, while right next door or across the street, "Stop the Plant" signs are clearly fixed for all to see.

The Canadian-owned St. Lawrence Cement factory was going to replace their city of Catskill facility. The new plant was designed using artistic illusory tricks of color to camouflage 40-foot high smokestacks, and using the newest technology to conceal toxic cement dust. Supporters believed the plant would provide jobs. That's what the plant public relations people wanted them to believe. There were no new jobs for the people living in Hudson.

Environmental organizations claimed the plant would cause lung disease and harm the ecosystem. The Environmental Protection Agency agreed, stopping the plant from poisoning the air and water. St. Lawrence Cement creates a product meant to bind together foundations for homes, buildings, roads and bridges. Yet this cement factory had the opposite effect on the people of this beautiful town nestled on the shores of the Hudson River. This went beyond professionally preprinted signs stuck firmly into green grass covered bedroom community lawns. This issue was personal.

This is about neighbors taking a stand not about a factory but against one another. There were as many signs posted on lawns by people declaring opposition to the plant, as there were flags flying from cars declaring solidarity with one another as citizens of one nation after the terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington, D.C..

Neighbors living in this River Valley followed in the tradition of Rip Van Winkle, and woke up to reality just in time. They stopped hiding behind façades, and preserved this land so loved by Frederic Church. Once the truth was out, that there were no new jobs, the polluting plant never happened.

Nature paints Her art as She did before Europeans discovered these old Mountains.