VERMONT
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hough rural, Vermont is filled with art. A pleasant drive among hills dotted with farms and through church-steepled towns will bring the curious and the enthusiast to one art gem after another. The range of work surprises, too. Some artists are inspired by the landscape; others explore politics or social movements. Brattleboro’s bustling historic downtown is anchored on one end by the Brattleboro Museum, housed in a restored stone train station dating from 1916. The former ticket lobby constitutes the first of six exhibit rooms. The venue shows “museum-quality art of our time,” says director Danny Lichtenfeld. The shows up through June 17 range from photographs by the nationally known Alfred Leslie to an installation by Montpelier artist Gowri Savoor that explores the imagined topography of migration. The main exhibit, Steve Gerberich’s The Best of “Springs, Sprockets and Pulleys” (up through September), is one of two interactive sculpture shows. His works, and those by Gloria Garfinkel in another gallery, are activated by pushing buttons, turning discs or swinging flaps. A few steps from the Brattleboro Museum is the River Gallery School of Art. In 1976, artists Ric and Barbara Campman founded the second-story school as a children’s afterschool program. These days, the school is committed to the entire community, with classes and workshops for kids, teens, adults, individuals
John Cassin, Road Home, 2018, oil on panel, 16 x 20". Courtesy of DaVallia-39 North Gallery.
with disabilities and caregivers. Its specialty is sequencing—a direct, unmediated approach to painting developed by Ric Campman when he was succumbing to cancer. The school con-
tinues his legacy by offering annual trainings in the method. Every First Friday, students display their latest work, and anyone can rent Gallery 34, a downstairs space. In May, there
FURCHGOTT SOURDIFFE
Kate Longmaid, Shades of Pink (detail), oil on panel.
86 Falls Rd, Shelburne, VT • 802-985-3848 • fsgallery.com
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VERMONT will be paintings by Tina K. Olsen, followed by illustrations and wood sculptures by Ross Smart. Artists wanting to hone their plein air skills can sign up for gallery-sponsored, faculty-led trips abroad including Provence, France, in September. From the River School, head north on Main Street, turn down an alley toward the Connecticut River and find the Catherine Dianich Gallery. Housed in a 19th-century factory building, the gallery’s white-painted brick interior walls provide the perfect industrial-chic background for contemporary art. Curator Catherine Dianich Gruver characterizes the artists she shows as Vermont (or Vermont-associated) photographers, printmakers, painters and sculptors “whose
work appeals to the serious collector.” Past shows, such as archival photos by John F. and Jacqueline Kennedy’s personal photographer Mark Shaw, have helped put the gallery on the map. In the current show, Are We There Yet? color photographer Zachary P. Stephens explores the “social constructions of gender, identity and domesticity.” The show, through May 30, will be followed by a summer invitational group exhibition. A few steps further down Main Street, brings you to the expertly selected offerings of Mitchell • Giddings Fine Arts. Founded in 2014 by artists Jim Mitchell and Petria Giddings, the gallery represents nearly 30 artists. Bruce Campbell, the newest addition, previously designed exhibition catalogues for
the Metropolitan Museum of Art and now creates kinetic wire sculptures operated by hand cranks. His works are featured in a show beginning May 12 along with small-scale forged and welded steel sculptures by Torin Porter, who lives in Glover, VT. “They’re very easy to like at first view, but pretty quickly you realize there’s something more going on,” says Mitchell of Porter’s figurative works that feature elongated hands and arms. Two miles west of downtown, a three-story farmhouse is home to CX Silver Gallery. Inside this arts/culinary/cultural destination, directors Adam Silver and Cai Xi not only show art but cater food, offer an Airbnb apartment, publish monographs and organize guided tours to off-the-beaten-path China. Xi, a painter, chef
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VERMONT ago, it added an Adult Studio Week to its summer arts program that has become a draw for adult artists from around the country. The oneweek, residency-like program provides around 40 artists of all levels with guided instruction in six workshops: painting, blacksmithing, creative writing, metal jewelry, glass arts and fiber arts. This year’s Adult Studio Week runs August 5–11. Some advanced artists who don’t need the instruction come to use the studio equipment, such as the blacksmithing workshop’s two forges, four anvils and welding equipment and the jewelry-making studio. The atmosphere is “very encouraging and non-competitive. And Vermont Jazz Center is in residency the same week, so there’s a good vibe,” says Dan Folgar, summer admissions manager.
Catamount Arts | 115 Eastern Ave., St. Johnsbury, VT 802-748-2600 | www.catamountarts.org Gallery Hours: 1-9:30 pm daily
An hour’s drive north of Brattleboro brings road-trippers to Chester, home to two historic districts. Artists Michael and Jessie Alon run a gallery in each. DaVallia Art Boutique, on the green in Chester, opened in 2009 and specializes in accessories and gifts. The artist-couple chose DaVallia, a fern name, to echo Jessie’s jewelry business, Fiddlehead Studio. Michael makes farmhouse-style furniture and mixedmedia sculpture, and together the couple do interior design. In 2014, the Alons opened DaVallia: 39 North Gallery a mile away in Stone, an 1830s community of stone-surfaced houses built by Scottish immigrants. The newer venue, a farmhouse with meticulous landscaping, shows fine art in a curated home environment and in a beautiful sculpture garden.
CATHERINE DI A N I C H G A L L ERY F E AT U RI N G WOR K from Vermont Artists
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and Tai Chi master, maintains her studio in the building. This May and June, the gallery’s main show features acrylics and watercolors by Stephen Lloyd, whose prismatic landscapes and city scenes relate to his architectural training. The gallery is also promoting two publications associated with shows bearing the same titles: Linda Mary Montano: 14 Years of Living Art, a 220-page archive of the work of a seminal feminist performance artist; and a walk on the inside, a retrospective of the work of poet and Fluxus artist Nye Ffarrabas, who creates provocative text-based works. Fifteen miles up I-91 from Brattleboro, The Putney School, a private boarding school, has been graduating progressively educated and arts-aware teenagers since the 1930s. Six years
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Resa Blatman: Trouble in Paradise April 22-June 8, 2018
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An exhibition of 17 paintings by Resa Blatman offering visual commentary on climate change and increasing threats to migratory birds and other species in our natural world. Image: Resa Blatman, The Fall (detail), 2012, oil, beads, glitter, glue, graphite/DiBond aluminum panels, triptych 72 x 156"
139 M AI N STRE E T • BR AT T L EB O RO, V ER M ON T by a ppo i n tm e n t 8 0 2 . 3 8 0 . 1 6 0 7 IMAGE: Gib Taylor, oil on canvas, 56 x 52"
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VERMONT “Once you pull in the driveway, your shoulders should drop,” says Michael. A solo show of Mary Giammarino’s plein-air expressionist paintings runs May 11–July 9. The sculpture garden, opening May 15, features ceramics by Stephen Procter. Continue north from Chester on country roads that pass several wildlife preserves to Woodstock which boasts an oval town green and the Town Crier, a roofed blackboard chalked with weekly event notices by the Woodstock History Center and the chamber of commerce. Just beside the Crier is The Woodstock Gallery. Owner Scott Franzen notes that the town’s handful of significant galleries has made the town an art-buying destination. The Woodstock focuses on “upbeat and con-
temporary but not abstract” art, he says. The 26 artists it represents include such Vermont icons as Woody Jackson, who designed Ben & Jerry’s cows, and revered printmaker Sabra Field. Franzen recently added woodcut artist Jeanne Amato to the roster. Her prints of Vermont landscapes and details from nature will be featured beginning July 7, followed by a Woody Jackson show opening August 11. The gallery also offers craft items, including jewelry, pottery, metalwork and carved wood. Woodstock boasts Vermont’s only National Historical Park, the Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller Farm and Museum, just north of the town center. Three miles north of that lies ArtisTree Community Arts Center. Situated on 30 acres of rolling hills in tiny South Pomfret, the center
occupies an 1891 red barn, yellow farmhouse and renovated grange hall. The nonprofit offers plays, concerts, comedy shows, visual-art classes and more. Exhibits are mostly locally focused. TRIO: Ceramics features work by Fiona Davis, an ArtisTree faculty member, and two artists who studied their craft at the center, Deborah Goodwin and Amanda Ann Palmer. The show runs May 18–June 9. An exception to the localartist rule is Unbound, Volume VIII. The juried show, opening July 27, features work by New England and New York artists who explore “the book” as concept, object and format. Fifteen miles east of Woodstock, in White River Junction, Two Rivers Printmaking Studio is a hub for some of the best printmaking in the state. The nonprofit, 1,000-square-foot
LESLIE FRY SCULPTURE GARDEN By appointment | Winooski, VT LESLIEFRY.COM
Crash to Creativity - Art New England double - 022818.qxp_Layout 1 3/12/18 11:03 AM Page 1
Crash to Creativity The New Deal in Vermont Francis Colburn (1909-1984), Charley Smith and His Barn, ca. 1939, (detail), Oil on canvas, 38.5 x 33.25 inches, Collection of Bennington Museum
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Fostering a culture of creativity and innovation among writers, artists, and civil workers. Also on view Contemporary Outsider Art • 20th Century Modernists Paintings by Grandma Moses • Early Vermont History
ART HISTORY INNOVATION HISTORY INNOVATION Bennington, VT • 802-447-1571 • benningtonmuseum.org
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VERMONT facility provides approximately 20 member artists with top-end equipment for honing techniques from intaglio to solarplate. Experienced faculty offer workshops for members and the public. The studio is emphasizing a move “toward green printmaking practices” by replacing traditional substances with non-toxic ones, says director Sheri Hancock-Tomek. Momenta IV, a juried show in May, will exhibit prints by artists chosen by master printer James Stroud. Summer usually sees an influx of printmakers from New York and Boston, who join for a day or week of membership. The building also houses a restaurant, store and pottery studio. On First Fridays throughout the year, bands enhance the festive atmosphere. An hour’s zoom up I-91 brings you to St.
Johnsbury, the population center for the mostly rural corner of the state known as the Northeast Kingdom. Catamount Arts, founded there more than 40 years ago as a regional cultural center, moved into its current quarters—a restored 1912 Masonic Temple—in 2008. Visitors enter between two massive Corinthian columns to see films, simulcasts, live performances and visual art. The center’s Main Art Gallery and the smaller Rankin Gallery sit just beside the box office. Up through June 8 is Trouble in Paradise, a show of oil and Mylar paintings by Resa Blatman that deals with climate change. In the Garden, an exhibit of Sarah Meyers Brent’s colorful, nature-inspired installations made from foam packing peanuts and other discarded materials opens June 30.
A half-hour’s drive northwest of St. Johnsbury brings you to Greensboro, whose rural environs shelter attractions ranging from political theater troupes to world-renowned microbreweries to quirky museums. The area’s newest addition is the barely year-old Highland Center for the Arts, with its signature circular theater inspired by Shakespeare’s Globe in London (minus the open roof). The complex also includes a smaller performance space, a café and an art gallery. “There’s a very diverse array of programming for the people who visit us,” says executive director Annie Houston. On view through May 28 is Muse, studies of woodland creatures by felting artist Amanda Weisenfeld, narrative printmaker Jess Polanshek and Kristin Richland, who
Middlebury College Museum of Art
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VERMONT
STOWE Helen Day Art Center Edgewater Gallery The Alchemist West Branch Gallery & Sculpture Park
GREENSBORO Highland Center for the Arts Miller’s Thumb Gallery
vermont Leslie Fry Hotel Vermont
SHELBURNE Furchgott Sourdiffe Gallery Shelburne Museum
Catamount Arts
Artisans Hand
Rokeby Museum Northern Daughters
BigTown Gallery
MIDDLEBURY Middlebury College Museum of Art Edgewater Gallery
ArtisTree Community Arts Center Woodstock Gallery
Carving Studio & Sculpture Center
Two Rivers Printmaking Studio
Green Hill Artist Retreat BENNINGTON Bennington Museum Bennington Area Arts Council GVH Studio, Inc
DaVallia-39 North Gallery
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BRATTLEBORO Brattleboro Museum & Art Center Catherine Dianich Gallery CX Silver Gallery Mitchell • Giddings Fine Arts River Gallery School of Art
paints whimsically imagined animals. Bread & Puppet Theater founder Peter Schumann’s masonite-on-muslin prints, from his series Post-Apocalypse for the 3/4 Empire, hang in the windows through May. Greensboro is also home to Miller’s Thumb Gallery, housed in a restored grist mill near Caspian Lake. Look for a small, red, gableroofed structure with white trim at the blissfulsounding corner of Breezy Avenue and Beach Road. Open mid-May to the end of October, the gallery offers fine art as well as crafts and clothing by 90 artists and artisans from around the state. Owner Anna Weisenfeld co-curates the selections with mixed-media collage artist Vanessa Compton. Beginning July 14, the gallery will host Ladies of the Canyon: In Honor of Marion Stegner, showcasing works by the master jeweler and beloved community member whose idea it was to start the gallery. (Stegner was the daughter-in-law of writer Wallace Stegner, who summered in Greensboro for most of his life.) The show will include women artists whose work draws inspiration from Marion and other “strong, powerful women,” says Weisenfeld. More women artists’ work can be seen in Stowe, an hour’s drive southwest of Greensboro, at the Helen Day Art Center. Known for its exhibitions that explore cuttingedge cultural and social issues, this summer’s exhibits are no exception. Addressing the lack of women artists represented on museum and gallery walls nationwide, Reclamation / ˌrekləˈmāSH(ə)n/ exhibits portraits of women by 12 nationally acclaimed contemporary female artists, plus a lithograph by Alice Neel. The show, running June 15–August 25, is co-curated by director Rachel Moore and artists August Burns and Diane Feissel. The art center’s front lawn is ideal for sculpture. During Exposed (July 21 through mid-October), an outdoor-sculpture show the center co-curates every year, the lawn is the starting point for a self-guided tour of temporarily installed sculptures that line Main Street and the Stowe Recreation Path. One of the state’s best outdoor sculpture gardens is at West Branch Gallery, a few minutes’ drive up Mountain Road from town. That’s just one reason to visit this must-see gallery. In warmer months, visitors can wander between the 3.5-acre garden and the open-plan rooms, which show more than 60 contemporary artists. New owner Marc Chretien also owns
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VERMONT Stowe Cider, which has a production facility in the building. On afternoons until 5 p.m., visitors can stroll the galleries with cans of cider in hand. Two duo exhibits run through May 20. A Reverent Eye, featuring photographer Jim Westphalen and painter Charlie Hunter, explores in grey and sepia tones relics of Vermont’s industrial and agricultural past. And in Deep Into Nature, Dianne Shullenberger’s fabric-and-thread collages and Susan Wahlrab’s varnished watercolors share a colorful palette and soft focus in their depictions of nature. If more than cider is needed at this juncture, head a mile up the Mountain Road to the Alchemist Brewery and Visitor Center. Makers of the near-mythic IPA Heady Topper, the Alchemist was founded in Waterbury as a
pub and brewery in 2003. In 2011, the company opened its Waterbury cannery, not open to the public, to produce Heady. Production is limited to what’s needed for distribution throughout a 25-mile radius of the cannery. In 2016, it opened the state-of-the-art Stowe brewery, which produces Focal Banger and other hoppy creations. At the Alchemist in Stowe, visitors can take a self-guided tour, sample beers and buy fourpacks of 16-ounce cans. Local bands enliven the scene in a Thursday-night outdoor music series that starts at the end of May. It’s just a short jaunt from Stowe to Montpelier, the country’s smallest state capital by population. Two blocks from the golddomed statehouse lies Artisans Hand. The craft gallery regularly shows work by all 130 artisans
on its roster. Run by its board, the venue is now entering its 40th year. “That’s pretty wonderful for a gallery that’s not really owned by anybody,” says Maggie Neale, a board member whose handwoven scarves and hand-painted silk clothing are sold at the gallery. In honor of the anniversary, the board has begun mounting short-term “featured artist” shows behind the sales desk. Stained-glass artist Elga Gemst’s work will be featured starting May 4, for Montpelier’s First Friday Art Walk. Back down at the bottom of the state, a pleasant hour’s drive west from Brattleboro on Route 9 brings one to Bennington. Nearly as iconic as the Bennington Battle Monument, is the Bennington Museum, part of which is housed in an 1852 church. The museum has
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Exhibit Opening
Fri., July 27th 5:30-7:30pm EXHIBIT DATES
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2095 Pomfret Rd, So. Pomfret, VT | 802.457.3500
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VERMONT the largest public collection of paintings by American folk artist “Grandma” Moses, and a significant collection of 18th-century pottery. Yet visitors will also encounter abstract paintings by Helen Frankenthaler in a room devoted to Bennington Modernism. Wandering the museum’s 14 galleries inevitably results in “creative collisions,” says Susan Strano, the museum’s marketing director. Crash to Creativity: The New Deal in Vermont, examines the impact of the era’s programs on Vermont artists and cultural life. Opening June 30, the show includes 1930s paintings by Francis Colburn and Ronald Slayton, Civilian Conservation Corps camp furniture, recordings from the Writer’s Project and other creative endeavors generated during a rare period of government support for the arts.
On the lighter side, the beloved New Yorker cartoonist and Vermonter Ed Koren shows recent works on paper starting May 12. If you spot any graphic banners at Bennington Museum, chances are they were made by GVH Studio, Inc., a large-format graphic fabricator located four blocks away. Many of founder-owner Greg Van Houten’s clients are museums, theaters, dance festivals and other cultural venues. In addition to wall murals and background graphics, GVH makes Main Street banners, byway markers, kiosk displays and informational panels, including the interpretive panels inside the Bennington Battle Monument. The company even printed out art for a special exhibit of digital film animation at the Norman Rockwell Museum last year. This
being Vermont, GVH uses only eco-solvent and latex inks. The Bennington Area Arts Council unifies many of the area’s art, music and performing arts organizations under one web umbrella (benningtonareaartscouncil.org), and spearheads cooperative efforts among its members. The council aims to “support the arts as an economic sector…while adding to the quality of life,” according to marketing materials. One cooperative effort is Bennington Arts Weekend, a destination weekend for arts and culture enthusiasts. This year, the August 3–5 weekend includes the Southern Vermont Arts & Crafts Festival, the North Bennington Outdoor Sculpture Show and numerous live performances and art exhibits around town.
Stephen Lloyd: Recent Work May 3 - June 11 2018
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Linda Montano: 14 Years of Living Art Nye Ffarrabas: a walk on the inside Brattleboro, VT
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VERMONT The council also organizes and funds Sonatina International Piano Camps, in which area youth, some of whom have never touched a piano, can learn to play. In 2017, 25 students attended on full scholarship. An hour’s drive north of Bennington, and a bit off Route 7, is Green Hill Artist Retreat in Danby. Gary Schmidt, a classical and jazz pianist and composer, and Erika Lawlor Schmidt, an interdisciplinary artist, printmaker and trained classical and modern dancer, began offering rooms in their home to creative types four years ago. They host between two and five artists at a time, who stay an average of two weeks. Green Hill is a true retreat, located on 10 acres of woods and fields, with another 200 acres of hiking trails across the road. Inside,
guests can access a fully equipped printmaking studio, dance studio or composer’s room with grand piano. Gary, who is also an experienced professional chef, avers that “the food we serve here is really good.” Green Hill “brings in people who want to work intensely.” That’s not to say it’s isolated—excellent theater, art, music and shopping are within a half-hour drive. The same distance north brings art enthusiasts to West Rutland. There, you can find the Vermont Marble Company, once the world’s largest marble producer. Now its inactive quarries and manufacturing facilities are home to The Carving Studio & Sculpture Center. In the 1854 company store and an 1892 factory, the nonprofit offers a host of workshops from stone carving to metalworking to stained glass. It also sponsors artist residencies and commissions. The annual members’ exhibition runs concurrently with a show by Texas-based marble carver Darryl Lauster from June 9–30. Opening July 7, New York-based Ed Smith’s bronze explores “Greek ideas of heroism and tragedy,” says executive director Carol Driscoll. And every fall, for SculptFest, a dozen invited sculptors from around the world come to create site-specific works. Some previous years’ works remain in and around the quarries. From West Rutland, a 50-minute foray into the Green Mountains brings you to the town of Rochester, where, in 2003, Anni Mackay started BigTown Gallery. Housed in a renovated 1912 home, the venue is immediately recognizable by its shingled keyhole facade and rear turret. Mackay has built up a roster of well-established
artists, including found-wood artist Paul Bowen and the unparalleled abstract watercolorist Helen Matteson. Dartmouth Influence, a special exhibit through June 30, features 10 women artists who teach at the nearby college. An exhibit of Ed Koren’s cartoon work opens on May 16—roughly the same time as his Bennington Museum show. Later seasonal offerings include work by JoAnne Carsons, who paints “large, fantastical floral paintings that are quite wonderful,” says Mackay. BigTown Projects, a recent initiative, brings cultural events to the gallery, including a summer reading series and a children’s outdoor performance series on Friday nights in August. Another 45-minute drive back to Route 7 brings you to the vibrant town of Middlebury. In an airy, multilevel building perched on the bank of Middlebury Falls, Edgewater Gallery was founded in 2009. The venue subsequently expanded to include another downtown venue, Edgewater Gallery on the Green. And in September 2017, it opened a third location in Stowe. The three locations showcase the work of at least 100 artists. Three-quarters are Vermonters, but lately the galleries have begun to represent other American and some Canadian artists. May brings lithographs by Daryl Storrs and abstract paintings by Helen Shulman to Edgewater at the Falls, and landscape paintings by Elizabeth Hoag to Edgewater on the Green. In June, both Middlebury galleries will host The Way We See It, a group exhibit of mostly abstract works by women artists. At the Edgewater in Stowe, the
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VERMONT
A stone carver, intent on a project. At the Carving Studio & Sculpture Center.
May show, Traces, features sculpture and 3D paintings by Rachel Moore. On the campus, just outside the downtown center, sits a Vermont gem: the Middlebury College Museum of Art. Its collection includes everything from 20th-century prints and photographs to Asian and western art dating back to the fourth millennium B.C.E. Several rooms show permanent installations of antiquities, Asian art and American and European painting and sculpture from the Renaissance
through the 19th century. Many works were collected by alumni during their world travels. The museum has two summer exhibits, both opening May 25: 1968: The Whole World Is Watching will use art, music and literature to explore that year’s upheaval in America; and Just Kids—an exhibit of photographs of children from around the world. Just up the road is Vergennes. In a state full of town greens bordered by brick-fronted main streets, Vergennes’ might be the most charm-
experience a great selection of quality New England artists
ing. Locals Sophie Pickens and Justine Jackson, friends since elementary school, certainly understand the small city’s appeal. In their early 30s, they left jobs in New York City to open Northern Daughters in an airy, wood-floored space, a block from the city green. Pickens and Jackson aim for balance as gallerists. “We want to make sure that the way we exhibit pieces leaves enough space to be able to focus on the work.” In addition to showing the work of 15 artists, Northern Daughters regularly highlights one or two. From May 3–June 10, they will feature Bonnie Baird’s elegant landscape paintings with their Turneresque cloudscapes and painters Julia Jensen and Anne Cady (Jackson’s mother), will headline a summer group show. Four miles north of Vergennes on Route 7 is Rokeby Museum, a National Historic Landmark. The 90-acre property comprises an education center, historic farm buildings and a farmhouse purchased in 1793 by Rowland T. Robinson, a Quaker and abolitionist. Robinson’s letters reveal much about how fugitive slaves who reached Vermont via the Underground Railroad fared. “Fewer slave catchers were going to come this far north,” director Catherine Brooks explains. Robinson employed some and found others jobs elsewhere. An absorbing permanent exhibit traces the stories of two slaves’ journeys to Vermont. Rokeby’s special exhibit, The Fabric of Emancipation, runs July 15–October 28. Originally curated by Harlem Needle Arts in New York City, the show includes work by eight American fabric artists from the northeast and Indiana exploring African diasporic iden-
Find food, fine art, film, music, theater, and more at the Northeast Kingdom’s home for the arts — where everyone’s an insider.
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2875 HARDWICK ST, GREENSBORO, VT
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VERMONT tity and history, including internationally collected quilter Ife Felix. Travelers continuing north soon reach Shelburne, where the 45-acre Shelburne Museum, whose entrance overlooks Lake Champlain, is a must-see. The museum is the large and varied collection of Electra Havemeyer Webb (1888-1960). On land gifted by her mother-in-law, Lila Vanderbilt Webb— who established nearby Shelburne Farms as a Gilded Age getaway—Electra deposited her collections of fine art as well as Americana. She even collected historic structures around the region and relocated them to the museum grounds, including a lighthouse and a tiny stone jail. The beautifully maintained grounds make for a perfect stroll from one building to
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the next. Appropriately, In the Garden is this season’s main indoor exhibit. It explores artists’ responses to “the full bio of gardens”— blooms, weeds, insects and all, says director Tom Denenberg. A companion exhibit features benches by five artists placed around the property. Playing Cowboy: America’s Wild West Shows, opening June 23, examines “Buffalo Bill” Cody’s influence on enduring perceptions of the west. One mile inland from the museum is Furchgott Sourdiffe Gallery. Housed in a restored, purple-hued Queen Anne Victorian, the gallery is among the most comfortable and intimate places to browse art in the state. Co-owner Joan Furchgott says she looks for artists “who are doing something distinctive and doing it well.” The gallery also shows the work of 20 craftspeople whose vases, bowls and necklaces are as compelling as the artwork on display. Furchgott’s husband Brad Sourdiffe does custom framing and restoration. Among the gallery’s 40 artists is Philip Hagopian, whose current show (through May 29), references his Armenian heritage. In addition to traditional landscapes, Hagopian creates “really interesting multimedia pieces that are more commentary on the human condition,” says Furchgott. A summer group show (June 1–July 17) highlights the abstract and, in some cases, textured acrylic paintings of Richard Weis. Fifteen minutes north of Shelburne is Burlington, or the Queen City as Vermont’s population center is known. Burlington packs art into dozens of galleries, museums, restaurants and even public hallways.
With so much to see and do in Burlington, it’s wise to spend the night. Hotel Vermont is a design enthusiast’s haven. The lobby, with its sculptural wall of Barre granite panels and found-wood artwork by Duncan Johnson over the reception desk, is only the beginning. A long roster of Vermont artisans made the lounge pillows, the rooms’ throw blankets, the personal-care products, even the glass soap dishes, forming a cohesive sophisticatedfarmhouse aesthetic. Lake Champlain is visible from many of the 125 rooms as well as underfoot: shells from its shore are embedded in the lounge floor. Hotel Vermont encourages its guests to get out, too. A row of Burlingtonmade Budnitz titanium bicycles are parked beside the reception desk, and in every room, printed guides to the area include a reprinted 1941 book of captioned photos, Vermont Is Where You Find It. Downtown restaurants are steps away, but guests can also eat in-house at Juniper, whose bar serves local-ingredientdriven cocktails. Just outside of Burlington, in the historic mill town of Winooski, is sculptor and artist Leslie Fry’s studio and sculpture garden. Open by appointment, the fenced garden is a remarkable surprise within a working-class neighborhood. Fry’s concrete, ceramic, plaster and bronze sculptures, as well as works on paper, often fuse female heads and figures with elements of architecture or representations of nature. A recent, more abstract series makes its material— sculpted concrete—look like soft ice-cream. Prominent among the works for sale in the garden is AcornHead, a colossal supine male head cast in bronze which graced the grounds of the deCordova Museum in Lincoln, MA, from 2012 to 2013. Fry, a gardener, says she designed the landscaping to make the sculptures “work together” among ornamental and edible plants. Fry’s sculpture garden and studio are a glimpse into the way of life of many Vermonters. The state is regularly cited as having among the highest density of artists per capita. “Art is really intrinsic to the way people live their lives here. You might not see 15 galleries in every town, but there’s something about living here that really encourages the creative process,” says Katherine French of Catamount Arts. That’s lucky for the rest of us. —Amy Lilly
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