Destination New England

NEW ENGLAND

DESTINATION NEW ENGLAND

Installation view of Atelier Van Lieshout’s Bacchus and His Two Assistants, 2001, at Hall Art Foundation. Courtesy Hall Art Foundation, Reading, VT.

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obody needs a specific reason to visit Vermont in autumn. The season itself is enough, with plenty of crisp sunlight, apple harvests and, of course, a dazzling display of color from the hardwood trees. Yet if nature’s offerings somehow aren’t enough, consider the fact that many of the Green Mountain State’s communities, large and small, are home to unique artistic and cultural institutions that weave spirit and local pride into the fabric of Vermont. There are so many we could fill the entire magazine—but in lieu of that, we’ve collected a few stops for you to consider on your northern leaf-peeping tour.

Just north of the Massachusetts border, Brattleboro is a charming river town packed

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with cultural experiences and places to browse the work of local artists and makers. Along Main Street, window shoppers can’t miss Vermont Artisan Designs. Owned for 35 years by husband-and-wife duo Greg and Suzy Worden, Vermont Artisan Designs is home to work by over 300 artists and craftspeople. According to Worden, the presentation changes all the time.

“There’s never a dull moment,” he said. “We have [visitors] who come back year after year.”

During Brattleboro’s gallery walk, which takes place on the first Friday of each month, painter Catherine Nunn will work on a portrait of local writer and artist Shanta Lee Gander live in the store’s front window. “People really love to see the artist at work,” Worden said.

September/October 2021

Another abundant, mixed-media experience can be found at Brattleboro’s Harmony Collective, a gallery owned and staffed by a collective of 30 artists. Painters, woodworkers, ceramicists, printmakers, and more share space there. “I could say something exciting about each one of them,” said Kate Greenough Richardson, a collective member. “The cool thing about being in a collective is we really do have a group identity…. What we’re really trying to establish is a community of artists.” Traveling north from Brattleboro, visitors will enter the Upper Valley, the area of Vermont and New Hampshire along the Connecticut River known for both beautiful scenery and thriving arts communities among the region’s towns and villages.

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NEW ENGLAND In Reading, the seasonal Hall Art Foundation sits on 400 acres of converted dairy farmland. Five buildings, including barns, have been converted into 6,000 square-feet of gallery space, open on weekends through November.

Hall Art’s current exhibition Deep Blue, on view through November 28, was curated by artist Katherine Bradford from the foundation’s permanent collection. Bradford selected more than 70 pieces by 70 artists, with “deep blue” reappearing as a theme in terms of color, landscape, and politics. In another gallery, Bradford’s own dreamy, colorful paintings are on display.

Visitors inclined for an outdoor walk can wander a property peppered with large sculptures.

Nearby Woodstock is a popular destination, especially during leaf-peeping season. At the Woodstock Gallery, owner Scott Franzen said he seeks out exciting, colorful pieces. “We really try to concentrate on established and upcoming New England artists,” he said. This fall, that vision will include new works from Burlington’s Sage Tucker Ketcham, whose small paintings straddle the line between traditional rural scenes and colorful abstractions; and Matt Brown, a New Hampshire-based printmaker who captures the region’s landscapes in woodblock prints using Japanese methods.

A few minutes away in Hartland, Gloria King Merritt welcomes guests into her studio space by appointment. A lifelong traditional painter, Merritt switched to digital painting in 2012 when an accident limited use of her right hand. “It’s very freeing, more freeing than working with paints on a canvas,” she said.

Merritt’s work, while somewhat abstract, is deeply rooted in her surroundings and in scientific inquiry.

Inspiration might come from a clump of fiddleheads, or a gear made by a skilled metalworker.

Her studio looks out over the tallest hill in Hartland and is completely solar-powered, meaning that her work is powered both literally and figuratively by the Vermont landscape.

If you get a hanJeanne McMahan, Poplars in the Wind, 2020, oil on canvas. Courtesy of Canal Street Art Gallery, Bellows Falls, VT. kering to take some of those picturesque scenes home with you, stop in at Long River Traveling west out of the Upper Valley, visiGallery in White River Junction. “We try to have tors approach the legendary Green Mountains the local art reflect the local views,” said co-ownand the city of Barre. With a history rooted er Kathy Detzer. The gallery “is just a natural in both mining and sculpting, Barre is home destination if you’re going to go leaf peeping,” to artisans who can create beautiful work out she said. In October, Long River will show a of unyielding stone. Studio Place Arts has birch-themed exhibition of watercolors by Amy organized an annual stone sculpture show, Hook Therrian and pottery by Molly Harper, Rock Solid, since 2000. This year’s exhibition residents of Vermont and New Hampshire, will include several pedestal-sized works by respectively. Harper’s cups, vases and dishes Giuliano Cecchinelli, a master carver trained look uncannily like sections of birch branches, in Italy. ‘Barre City was settled by artists,” said some complete with carved-in initials or fungal Sue Higby, executive director of Studio Place outgrowths—they must be seen to be believed.

Arts, “Making things from stone was the central

STUDIO PLACE ARTS DYNAMIC WORKING ART CENTER SINCE 2000 Exhibits • Classes Public Sculptures Artists’ Studios

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NEW ENGLAND economic activity, and when we were looking for a site for Studio Place Arts, we picked Barre because we wanted to be in an old city.” Studio Place Arts has further invested in the city by developing an art walk featuring 14 stone sculptures throughout the city’s downtown, including several sculptural bike racks.

Just a half hour north in Calais, history also plays a central role at Kent’s Corner, a site that hosts an annual Art at the Kent event for just one month of the year, September 10 through October 10. The site, an 1837 stagecoach inn connected to a general store, is owned by the state Department of Historical Preservation, and was once intended to be a history museum. Now, according to Vermont state curator David Schutz, who curates Art at the Kent

along with Nel Emlen and Allyson Evans, the semi-deconstructed walls provide the perfect backdrop. It’s as much about the setting as it is about the art itself,” Schutz said. “How do contemporary artists look at the past?” This year’s show will feature 20 Vermont artists, including found-object assemblage sculptures

by John Parker and Cindy Blakeslee. Events and artist talks will complement the exhibition, including the Words Out Loud poetry series on September 19 featuring Mary Ruefle and Kathryn Davis.

South of I-89, visitors can drop into the Mad River Valley, where quirky and vibrant communities have sprung up amid the area’s year-round recreation opportunities. At the end of a steep dirt road in Waitsfield resides

the Bundy Modern, a Bauhaus-style building with massive windows and a reflecting pond framed by sugar maple trees. Inside, visitors will find Landscapes and Inscapes, an exhibition of paintings and prints by Adolf and Virginia Dehn. June Anderson, co-owner of the Bundy Modern, describes Adolf as “the most famous unknown artist you’ve ever met.” While Dehn worked during a period of appreciation for rural living in American art between the two World Wars, his creations are unique. “There’s a grittiness and realism to it that makes it a bit more bracing,” Anderson explains. Virginia Dehn, by contrast, produced textural, emotional abstracts. Though the couple enjoyed a lifelong artistic partnership, their paintings are hung in separate rooms. “When we tried to

Our Tangled Choices: Art and the Environment August 28 November 14

Ongoing art exhibits, music concerts and theater performances, classes and workshops, literary events.

Please check current schedule at

www.stonevalleyarts.org Contact us at 930 SVAC Drive Manchester, VT www.svac.org

stonevalleyartscenter@gmail.com or phone: 802.353.6502

145 East Main Street, Poultney, Vermont

Burlington, Vermont | hotelvt.com

Fine Art & Contemporary American Craft

www.vtart.com 106 Main St., Brattleboro, VT 802-246-7245

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Sunflowers & Cider Apples, oil on panel by Julie Y Baker Albright

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NEW ENGLAND put the painters together, they had arguments and fought. The paintings themselves fought,” Anderson describes. Instead, they settled on viewing experiences that represent different movements in American art history.

Continue north to Stowe, an equally famous Vermont ski town, where a longstanding art institution underwent a transformation this year. The Helen Day Art Center rebranded as The Current, a long-term vision to represent the center as a space for contemporary art. “It’s more apt in terms of the kind of art that we display and the themes that we’re doing here,” said Annie Sklar, an advancement associate at The Current. Through November 13, a solo show by Meleko Mokgosi titled Scripto-visual will span oil paintings, charcoal drawings, graphic posters, and text by the artist. In the Art Lounge, visitors can see high-contrast, black-and-white portraits by Crystal Stokes.

On view throughout Stowe until October 23 is Exposed 2021, an exploration of the relationship between sculpture and language. A weaving

by Mildred Beltre and Oasa DuVerney invites the viewer to “come celebrate with me that everyday something has tried to kill me and failed,” a line from a Lucille Clifton poem, while a billboard by Jonathan Gitelson simply asks, “Are You Here?”

Venturing deeper into central Vermont, the town of Johnson is well-known among artists as the home of the Vermont Studio Center, the country’s largest international artists’ and writers’ residency program. Compelled by the town’s need for more contemporary art, Kyle

Nuse and her husband Michael Mahnke opened Minėmå Gallery, a micro-gallery located in the front of the art supply store they’ve owned since 2014. Minėmå will celebrate its first anniversary with VIBRANTSEE/D, a solo exhibition with quilted wall hangings by Marya Lowe, on view through October 30. “We show fine art and fine craft, and we love the idea of lifting, in our own little way, the craft world and putting it on the same playing field as fine art,” Nuse said. “We love being able to curate a show for crafters in a fine art space.”

No visit to Vermont is complete without a stop in the queen city, Burlington. Anchoring Burlington’s art scene is Burlington City Arts, which provides grants to artists and organizations, runs a gallery space, and puts

on a weekly Saturday artists’ market that runs through the end of September. Walking through—or even past—the BCA Gallery front doors before October 9, viewers won’t be able to look away from Where the Sun Shines Every Day, an installation of colorful hills and valleys by Australian artist Pip & Pop. Part of the larger exhibition titled Bubblegum Pop, the sculpture is euphoric to the point of disorientation. Opening October 22, two new exhibitions will take over the firehouse-turned gallery: a sculptural installation by Bradley Borthwick and a group show that explores new ideas of abstraction, featuring work by Rachel Gross, Rob Hitzig, and Kirsten Reynolds.

A short stroll through City Hall Park lands visitors on the doorstep of the Mad River

FALL EXHIBITIONS

OCTOBER 22, 2021 — FEBRUARY 5, 2022

Kirsten Reynolds, Spillover, 2021, model for site-specific installation

UNBOUND

Rachel Gross, Rob Hitzig, and Kirsten Reynolds.

Nero’s Analogue, 2018

BRADLEY BORTHWICK: OBJECTS OF EMPIRE

SUMMER EXHIBITIONS ON VIEW THROUGH OCTOBER 9, 2021 GALLERY HOURS WED-FRI: 12-5 PM, SAT: 12-8 PM | BURLINGTO NCITYARTS.ORG 2021 EXHIBITION YEAR PRESENTED BY

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Burlington City Arts is supported in part by the New England Foundation for the Arts through the New England Arts Resilience Fund, part of the United States Regional Arts Resilience Fund, an initiative of the U.S. Regional Arts Organizations and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, with major funding from the federal CARES Act from the National Endowment for the Arts, and by the Vermont Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts.

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NEW ENGLAND

Meleko Mokgosi: Scripto-visual

June 17 — November 13, 2021

Outdoor Sculpture Exhibition July 10 — October 23, 2021

Distillers tasting room, home to a different kind of art: the cocktail. The distillery makes its spirits from scratch in Waitsfield, and visitors can taste Mad Apple, a seasonal dry apple brandy made from Vermont apples. The cocktail menu at the tasting room changes monthly, though staples like the Maple Bourbon Sour (bourbon, Vermont maple syrup, lemon juice and bitters) can be found year-round. Mad River doesn’t just serve cocktails, it teaches visitors how to make them. “If you’re not a straight whiskey drinker, which a lot of people aren’t, the biggest question that we get is what can I do with this at home,” said Mimi Buttenheim, the distillery’s president. That’s why the taproom sells glassware, mixers, and more than 50 kinds of bitters, and why the Mad River Distillers YouTube channel offers detailed how-to videos on mixing the perfect drink from the comfort of home.

Should visitors need a place to crash after a full day of art viewing and cocktail consuming, they can try Hotel Vermont, an independent hotel with easy access to both downtown and the waterfront. The hotel infuses a local flair into every aspect of a stay there, from locally sourced ingredients at Hen of the Wood, one of the hotel’s three eateries, to a library of books by Vermont authors and complementary Vermont Flannel Company bathrobes. There’s local art to be found here, too—in the lobby hangs a seven-by-eleven-foot panel made of hundreds of pieces of reclaimed wood by Bellows Falls artist Duncan Johnson.

In Winooski, just over the river from Burlington, artist Leslie Fry welcomes visitors to her studio and personal sculpture garden.

For the last 31 years, she’s built sculptures for display in her own backyard, integrated with her garden plantings. “It’s an oasis in a small, dense little city,” she said. “When you walk into it, you’ve left the real world behind.” Fry’s work incorporates the female body, mythology, and the natural world, and her sculpture garden is an intimate experience. Interested visitors can also peek into Fry’s studio, which houses her two-dimensional prints and collages and where she’s currently at work on a column topped by a flying bird woman, which will be cast in bronze this fall. More of her work can be found in Pomerleau Neighborhood Park, a pocket park in South Burlington designed by Fry & Steven Schenker, where Fry’s sculptures sit, gargoyle-like, overlooking a small plaza.

Further down the road in the heart of Shelburne, Furchgott Sourdiffe is a small gallery with a well-curated collection of fine art and crafts. One highlight is the work of Mario Messina, a local woodworker and furniture designer. On display are a few sculptures and lighting fixtures made of wood, stone, and paper, showcasing Messina’s intricate joinery work and casting engaging shadows on the wall. Furchgott Sourdiffe is also a custom framing shop, making it a great stop to frame any artwork picked up along the way.

Continuing south, Route 7 ushers visitors into the open farmland of Addison County.

LESLIE FRY SCULPTURE GARDEN By appointment | Winooski, VT LESLIEFRY.COM

@TheCurrentExhibitions 90 Pond Street Stowe, Vermont 802-253-8358

thecurrentnow.org

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Schmidt, Stone Valley Arts’ executive director, who is herself a visual artist and contemporary dancer. The organization hosts music, theater, and dance performances, along with exhibitions in its two galleries. Through October 17, Stone Valley Arts presents Priority Prints, an open call show from the Monotype Guild of New England.

The show carries a double-meaning: inviting works that Visitors at the recent exhibition, Emergence: from the Studio into the Streets with LMNOPI, a retrospective of works feel urgent and

by Lopi LaRoe. Courtesy of Stone Valley Arts, Poultney, VT. immediate, but also recognizing a practiIn Middlebury, Theresa Harris, director of cal limitation—the monotypes submitted must Edgewater Gallery, works to display differfit inside a USPS Priority Mail envelope. In ent types of art in the gallery’s two locations. late October, Stone Valley Arts will also presDuring September, the show Still Life/Life Stills ent a show for its member artists. displays the work of Kimberlee Alemian and Another Vermont town punching well above Lori Mehta, who paint still lifes and figures, its weight is Manchester, home of the Southern respectively. “Because we live in this beautiful Vermont Arts Center, which occupies 100 acres state with these beautiful landscapes, and we with a sculpture park, walking trails, and two have a lot of landscape painters…I wanted to galleries. Through the end of September, visitors highlight some other types of painters,” Harris can view a variety of works, including the show explained. In October, viewers will be treated to another engaging contrast to Vermont’s autumn splendor in the paintings of Jeff Bye for a solo show titled Shenandoah. Bye’s paintings show gritty and abandoned city spaces, slightly smudged as though the viewer were peering at CELEBRATE them through a streaky window. “He's a little THE ART OF more edgy and urban,” Harris said. “Again, I DISTILLING wanted to represent a different side of the gallery…. It might not be what people expect in Fermented, Distilled & Bottled October [in Vermont].” from Local Grains in Warren, Vermont Stone Valley Arts in Poultney occupies an 1820 stone building that previously housed a church, a Masonic temple, and another art center. “We’re a fairly young nonprofit, but we’re in this historic building and we’re just working to make art accessible,” said Erika

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On view

September 1 st – 30th

Still Life Life Stills Kim Alemian & Lori Mehta - Edgewater Gallery on the Green -

EDGEWATER GA L L E RY Now with exhibitions and artist events at

The Pitcher Inn, Warren, Vermont HOURS: Tuesday - Saturday 10AM – 5PM Sunday 11AM – 4PM

One Mill St and 6 Merchant’s Row, Middlebury VT

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NEW ENGLAND Our Tangled Choices: Art and the Environment, highlighting the work of Michelle Lougee and Pat Musack. Lougee crochets with yarn woven from discarded single-use plastic and lays it over molded wire shapes. Musack creates sculptural works inspired by the environment, working with stone, steel, wood, canvas, kozo paper, and beeswax. “The media and the science community for so long have talked about climate change in big, data-driven ways,” said Alison Crites, SVAC’s manager of exhibitions and interpretive engagement. “We tend to learn about examples that are distinct from our everyday, lived realities. That’s why it was important to me to bring in community members who can reflect on these issues as they impact us in Southern Vermont.”

A similar drive to represent the community is happening at the Bennington Museum, which displays history exhibits alongside contemporary art. This fall, the museum will include works by Dusty Boynton, which are colorful and described as childlike in their imagery. Through October 11, the museum will also display an 1863 quilt by Jane Stickle, a huge draw for visitors all over the world. Only shown for a month each year due to the fragility of the fabric, the quilt contains more than 5,000 fabric pieces arranged into 162 five-inch blocks. There’s also a seasonal exhibit honoring one of the area’s most famous residents, Robert Frost. “It’s really about the culture of the region,” said Alexina Jones, the museum’s director of advancement. “We want to be a

source of pride for our community and showcase what this little corner of Vermont and the surrounding area can offer.”

As the leaves begin to turn, bundle up and seize the first opportunity to take in the sights of Vermont—both natural and cultural.

Whether this is your first journey to Vermont or your millionth, adventure awaits in the Green Mountain State.

MASSACHUSETTS In this ever-evolving world, it’s become increasingly imperative that design, art, and technology must unite and collaborate to protect humanity as well as our planet. Launched in 2016, DATMA (Design Art Technology Massachusetts) has surpassed all expecta-

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Minėmå (min-AH-ma) is a contemporary public art gallery currently exhibiting Vermont-based female artists, working in a multitude of fine art and craft disciplines.

LONG RIVER GALLERY

Fine art & craft

made in Vermont

A gallery showing work by over 100 artists, located in historic White River Junction, the creative hub of Vermont.

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NEW ENGLAND tions, redefining how we view art; how we understand technology; and how we appreciate design. It delivers inspiring public art and provocative, educational exhibits that fascinate, confound, inspire and delight regardless of age. Through October 17, DATMA is presenting three outdoor exhibitions—all exploring the subject of water—accompanied by virtual and in-person programming. Exhibitions showcase international artists and photographers, including Craig Easton, Hyung Sun Kim, Phil Mello, and Zimoun. “DATMA’s WATER 2021 brings more exciting art from around the world and puts it on display for the public—fantastic photographs of people and marine life, and a sculptural sound exhibition that shows how the integration of technology and design cre-

ates art. Best of all, our entire programming season is spread throughout downtown, within walking distance from each other, free and accessible to people of all ages and interests,” shared Nicholas Sullivan, DATMA board chair in a press release. Guaranteed to spark questions and challenge growing minds, DATMA makes for a perfect family excursion.

CONNECTICUT Heading south to Centerbrook Connecticut, we land at the Spectrum Art Gallery and Artisan Store. An extension of the nonprofit Arts Center Killingworth founded in 2003, Spectrum represents artists from around the nation as well as local artists and artisans from a range of expertises and experience levels.

Once inside the gallery and store, you are welcomed with a cheerful array of art. From jewelry to sculpture, there is something to be found for everyone. Looking forward to October, the Spectrum Art Gallery is hosting their annual Outdoor Autumn Festival and Show. Perched on the Madison Town Green in Madison, CT, visitors can expect to see as wide a range of artistic mediums with 75 exhibitors present.

The Festival is the perfect way to kick off the autumn season, as you wander through the tents, meeting the artists themselves, and find yourself surrounded by New England’s ever impressive foliage changing for the season.

—Margaret Grayson Meredith Davis Rita A. Fucillo

ON VIEW NOW

F RO M O C E A N WAV E S TO S O U N D WAV E S

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All free and open to the public 3 Outdoor Exhibitions plus many Virtual & In-person Programs & Workshops featuring local and international Artists & Photographers including: F I N E A RT ● A RT I S A N A L C R A F T S

CRAIG EASTON HYUNG SUN KIM PHIL MELLO ZIMOUN Plus a collection of works from School for Marine Science and Technology (SMAST) at UMass Dartmouth

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