Art New England: Destination Southern Vermont

DESTINATION SOUTHERN VERMONTDESTINATION SOUTHERN VERMONT

45 Art New eNglANd M a r c h / A p r i l 2 0 1 5

As March flows into April in Vermont, winter melts into spring. Skiers can still be

found schussing down mountains and skaters gliding over icy ponds while a fresh, temperate breeze winds through the state and flower buds nudge through the tips of tree branches. This is also a time of rebirth within the artist community. Although the artistic spirit is never dormant, the coming of spring breathes new life into new possibilities.

This issue, Art New England’s Destination column takes us into the gorgeous region of southern Vermont and begins in South Pomfret, perhaps the farthest “north” that we could call “south-ern.” Begin your art-inerary at the Artistree Community Arts Center & Gallery where you’ll find visual artists, performances, students, community members, craftspeople—even yoga. Despite the town’s population of 940 residents, there’s a nightly art event. Every second Sunday the center holds a drumming circle, teaching spiritual drumbeats and their cultural significance. One Tuesday per month the group hosts DSLR lessons for budding photographers. For younger participants Artistree works with Purple Crayon, educating children under five about the arts.

Just a bit south of South Pomfret, you’ll enter Woodstock, known for its picturesque small-town charm and burgeoning art scene. The Woodstock Gallery is a great first stop here. Inside, yellow walls and soft lighting illuminate dozens of carefully crafted art objects. The work is displayed as if it were hanging in your living room. With the motto “from folk art to fine art,” the gallery encompasses many artists and media, from paintings and photography to pottery, woodcarving and metalwork. It’s been a staple in downtown Woodstock for 15 years, and its own-ers make a conscious effort to represent mostly regional artists.

Strolling from Elm Street onto Central you’ll find Collective—the Art of Craft. Tucked inside an old, stone building, this gallery/shop is full of artisan works, including Faith Fellows hand-crafted leather handbags, each hand-beaded and embroidered with a nature-inspired design; and Scott Duffy’s fine furniture boasting contempo-rary design, with pared down forms and taut lines. Every three months the gallery rotates its guest artists. On view through March is jeweler T. Breeze Verdant; ceramicist Andrea Trzaskos; Nuno felter Deborah Ellis; and Susan Damone Balch, quilter. A different artist works at the store each day, please stop in and say hello.

A few miles down 106 South brings us to Springfield, a small town on the New Hampshire border. While walking along Main Street, peek in the windows of Gallery at the Vault which fea-tures a curated selection of handcrafted artworks. The windows are where it all started for gallery founders Nina Jamison and Alison Wallace. In

the early 2000s downtown Springfield was suf-fering from a lagging economy and many of the once-lustrous storefronts were empty. Jamison and Wallace began installing local artists’ work in the empty windows to boost morale. Public reception was so strong they opened the gallery. The building’s origins—a bank—inspired the name and the vault is a cool facet of the space.

While driving southwest towards Bennington through Manchester, Route 11 to 7A, you’ll pass the Southern Vermont Art Center and see what looks like a steel bridge mounted on a pair of wooden blocks, stretching across a small stream. The makeshift bridge is actually a work of art called Crossing by environmental sculpture artist Pat Musick. She has been making art since age four when she became inspired by the weavings of her Navajo caretaker. “My theme for the past 25 years is a love for our fragile world and a concern that we take care of and protect it,” says Musick. She portrays this message through her

DESTINATION SOUTHERN VERMONTDESTINATION SOUTHERN VERMONT

S P E C I A L A D V E R T I S I N G S E C T I O N

Bennington, VT. Photo: Stephen Goodhue. Image courtesy of vermontvacation.com.

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SOUTHERN VTSOUTHERN VT

materials: stone, wood and beeswax representing the natural world, while paper, steel and canvas represent the humans who encroach upon it. This explains Crossing, where manmade steel covers up the authentic beauty of the stream to accom-modate human needs.

Continue along Route 7A south to the quaint town of Bennington. If you’re beginning your art-inerary here, start the morning off with breakfast at the Blue Benn Diner, a 1945 railcar complete with plastic-covered counter stools and a juke-box. From there the Bennington Museum is only a three-minute drive. The impressive stone structure, originally a Catholic church, was reno-vated into the museum in 1928. The museum is the largest art and history repository in southern Vermont and in 2014 was one of seven museums in North America recognized in the Wall Street

Journal’s “Best of 2014: ART.” The museum is best known for its paintings by renowned folk artist Grandma Moses—housing the world’s larg-est public collection. If you’re there on April 11, you’ll witness Slow Art Day where groups select five works of art to contemplate then meet for lunch and a discussion with a volunteer host.

Perhaps your southern Vermont tour begins in Brattleboro, as “easternmost” as Bennington is “westernmost.” Although smaller than Bennington, Brattleboro has a well-known and vibrant arts community. The town hosts several large arts organizations, including Vermont Artisan Designs. The gallery features some of Brattleboro’s premiere artists with a collection of work ranging from glass perfume bottles by Mary Angus to hand-carved chairs and benches by George Ainley. To keep things fresh, the gal-

lery has a rotating exhibit every month, featuring seasonally relevant work. The March exhibit focuses on the work of oil painter, Janis Sanders. In April it will feature folk artist and sculptor Warren Kimble.

A short walk along Main Street will take you to Mitchell Giddings Fine Art, which opened in September 2014. Founded by Petria Mitchell and Jim Giddings, both artists for 35 years, the gallery represents seven artists working in a range of mediums. Christine Triebert creates camera-less shadowgraphs resulting in powerful black and white images; Michelle Holzapfel creates hand-carved sculptures, vases and frames that take on new textures; Doug Trump makes contemporary oil, pencil and collage works that tell a complete narrative in a single image. Grateful for their own careers, Mitchell and Giddings want to help other artists make connections, develop and sell their work. “Art has been our life’s journey, and to explore, create and manage an arts business was the next obvious step.”

A stone’s throw away on Main Street is the Catherine Dianich Gallery. Created by friends and kindred artistic spirits, Dede Cummings and Catherine Dianich Gruver, the gallery specializes in fine contemporary art at the national and inter-national level. Having previously lived in cities, both were drawn to the urban-feel of this space and its full glass windows. The gallery represents a diverse list of 37 artists and Dianich Gruver and Cummings hope to reflect the evolution of the Brattleboro art scene by curating artists that work in dramatically different ways. For example, Timothy J. Seger’s large, metal sculptures visu-ally provoke and complement Julia Jensen’s oil-


68 Main Street, Spring�eld, VTgalleryvault.org ~ 802-885-7111Hours 11-5 ~ Tuesday-Saturday

JUDY HAWKINSO i l P a i n t i n g s

S t u d i o a n d g a l l e r y o p e n b y a p p o i n t m e n tW e s t m i n s t e r W e s t , V e r m o n t

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Inward Adorings of the MindOutsider, Visionary, and Folk Art by Yoakum, Tolliver, Moses, and others

July 3 through Nov 1

New — Works on Paper Gallery

BENNINGTON MUSEUMART | HISTORY | INNOVATION75 Main Street | Bennington, VT benningtonmuseum.org

GRASSROOTSAR

TArtist U

nknown, The M

an (Lady) in the Moon, c. 1950, Painted M

aple, 27½” x 14” x 3½

”, Blasdel/Koch Collection

featuring a great selection of New England Artists

www.woodstockgalleryVT.com

46 Art New eNglANd M a r c h / A p r i l 2 0 1 5


on-panel landscapes, and together represent the diversity of the area.

If you’re craving a little European influence while touring Brattleboro, wander into Penelope Wurr’s shop at 167 Main. Originally from Britain, Wurr fills her store with beautiful, well designed-products from across the pond. In this cozy space you’ll find hats, scarves, gloves, soaps, tableware and dry foods as well as furniture. Wurr show-cases a few local artists yet her main intention is to bring European design to Vermont. “We tend to be much more eclectic [in England], we’re not afraid to mix vintage and modern.” Wurr herself is an artist; she creates one-of-a-kind glass finish-ing on vases, tableware and even furniture. In April Penelope will feature a new British ceramic artist, Mia Sarosi.

A five minute drive to Western Avenue brings

you to C.X. Silver Gallery. Walking in is a full sensory experience. While your eyes examine the muted pallet of Gordon Jones’s landscapes, you can smell the sharp tang of ginger and hear the sizzle of a skillet flipping dumplings in the back. The gallery features landscapes, portraits, abstract painting, installations, word art, conceptual art, participatory and performance art, video instal-lation, art-as-food-as-art, outdoor fiber and wind sculpture and Chinese calligraphy banners. Plus home-cooked Chinese dim sum! Beginning in March 2016, owner, artist and chef Cai and art-ist Lee Xi will offer guided cultural and culinary trips to Chongqing, Sichuan and Beijing.

At the foot of Main Street is the historic Union Station that once bustled with travelers. In 1966 passenger service to Brattleboro was terminated and the station fell into disrepair. Fortunately,

a group of creative community members refur-bished the station and re-opened it in 1972 as the Brattleboro Museum and Art Center. The building still maintains the old ticket booths and windows overlooking the train tracks. Today the space shows dynamic exhibitions of contempo-rary and historic art. Opening March 14, Love, Labor, Worship: The People of Basin Farm featuring photographs by Michael Poster of a two-year period in the Messianic Community. The muse-um will host several community events during March and April, including its Spring Gala on April 10, which benefits its youth and education programs.

Just a few minutes from Main Street is Fulcrum Arts, a constant hub of activity. Created by Randi Solin and Natalie Blake, the organiza-tion functions as a store, school, studio, and gal-

Catherine DianiCh GalleryFeaturing Work from Vermont artists

139 Main Street • BrattleBoro, Vtwww.catherinedianichgallery.com

iMage: “untitled Ct river Landscape no.18,” PauL taYLor, Collodion print, 30 x 40 inches.

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M a r c h / A p r i l 2 0 1 5 Art New eNglANd 47


lery for local, silica-based artists (glassworkers and ceramicists). A pottery wheel whirs softly while a ceramicist concentrates on clay; down the hall silence falls around an artist blowing into a long tube, shaping hot glass into a perfect sphere; one room over teenagers are taking a clay painting class. The main goal of Fulcrum is to make fine crafts accessible to everyone, and in any given class you’ll see a group of young, old, experienced and beginner artists. Everything about the space is local, even the studio bath-rooms have hand-painted tile walls done by Fulcrum artists.

A fifteen-minute drive north of Brattleboro, nestled in the woods of Putney, is the studio of Judy Hawkins whose vibrant landscapes are inspired by Vermont’s inimitable natural beauty. “I draw inspiration and energy from dramatic

skies, constantly changing light and the intimate details of nature as well as its infinite scale.” Hawkins uses light layers of brightly colored oils to create the rich, luminous glow in her works. Her paintings are characterized by bright shocks of color, a rich emerald for the grass, deep cobalt for the sky, a stunning pink in a sunset. The colors elicit the powerful emotions that weather, especially New England weather, evokes.

Glassblowing is certainly one of the most intricate and intriguing art mediums and in Bellows Falls, just north of Putney, you’ll find artist Chris Sherwin who’s been creating excep-tional glass vases and paperweights for more than 20 years. His paperweights are sturdy glass orbs with intricate floral detailing. The base color of the weights is often a Starry Night-inspired blue with a sprinkling of white “stars,” serving

as a backdrop for vibrant flowers. In one par-ticularly intricate piece Sherwin created a weight with two daisies in the center, accented from behind by pieces of gold foil cut at rough angles. The result is an opulent natural scene displaying craftsmanship a lifetime in the making.

The art and aura of southern Vermont will keep you fascinated for days—find a cozy bed and breakfast and visit as many artists and gal-leries as you can. You’ll also find incredible farm-to-table cuisine and gracious hospitality throughout the state. Dress in layers, though! Spring may be here yet March and April can still carry a chill. Enjoy!

Art New England’s May/June Destination columns will explore the Berkshires and the Connecticut shore, from New London to Greenwich. —Celina Colby

Vermont Artisan Designs

vtart.com106 Main St., Brattleboro, VT [email protected] (802) 257-7044

F I N E C O N T E M P O R A R Y G L A S S L O C A L & E U R O P E A N G I F T S

167 Main Street, Brattleboro, VT 05301 | (802) 246 3015

Opening April: British Ceramic Artist Mia Sarosi

Art, Music, Movement, TheatrePerformances & Exhibits

www.artistreevt.org | [email protected]

2095 Pomfret Road - S. Pomfret, VTOnly 3 miles

from Woodstock! WE’VE MOVED!

Sherwin Art Glass Studio/Gallery

The Beauty of Nature in Glass…Open by Chance or Appointment • Demonstrations Most Days

33 Bridge Street • Bellows Falls, VT 05101(802) 376-5744 • sherwinartglass.com


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Art New England: Destination Southern Vermont