Art | Live Culture | Seven Days | Vermont's Independent Voice
Friday, October 15, 2021

Posted By on Fri, Oct 15, 2021 at 6:30 PM

Charlotte Gallery Bauschaus VT Hosts Night of Ambient Music and Art Installations
courtesy of Caleb Kenna
Zach Pollakoff
Artist, musician and advertising professional Zach Pollakoff is throwing the second show at his Bauschaus VT gallery in Charlotte this Saturday, October 16. Six artists will display large-scale installations in Pollakoff's historic gallery and home, accompanied by a live soundtrack from Brooklyn's Elori Saxl, an Emmy-nominated composer and filmmaker, and Photay, an electronic producer, also from New York City.

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Monday, August 2, 2021

Posted By on Mon, Aug 2, 2021 at 1:23 PM

click to enlarge Elka Schumann, the 'Heart and Soul' of Bread and Puppet, Dies
Jeb Wallace-Brodeur
Elka and Peter Schumann
Elka Schumann, whose personal and artistic partnership with her husband, Peter, was a guiding force of Bread and Puppet Theater for almost 60 years, died on Sunday. She was 85.

Her death, at North Country Hospital in Newport, was confirmed by  Michael Romanyshyn, a family friend and longtime puppeteer.  Elka was "everything" to Bread and Puppet, Romanyshyn said. "She was the heart and soul."

Elka was born in Russia in August 1935 to a Russian mother and an American father. Her family left that country, bound for the United States, when she was a young girl.

Elka met Peter, an artist and puppeteer, in his native Germany while she was a college student studying abroad.  The Schumanns were married in 1959 and lived in New York City, where Peter founded Bread and Puppet on the Lower East side of Manhattan in 1963. The couple moved with their five children to Plainfield in 1970, before settling at the Bread and Puppet farm in Glover in 1974.

She was the "bedrock" for both the family and the theater, said her son, Max Schumann.
click to enlarge Elka Schumann, the 'Heart and Soul' of Bread and Puppet, Dies (4)
Glenn Russell
Peter and Elka Schumann
This summer, Bread and Puppet is celebrating the 50th anniversary of  its  Domestic Resurrection Circus. Elka, dressed in white, walked arm in arm with Peter across the natural amphitheater on July 11 at an opening performance of the season  to take her seat on the grassy stage. She played recorder during the show. She also participated  in last Saturday’s performance, Romanyshyn said.

In recent years, Elka became interested in gatherings to remember and mourn the dead in the pine woods at Bread and Puppet, where a memorial village of sculptures, paintings and installations pay tribute to deceased puppeteers, artists, friends and family. One little house honors Elka's parents, John and Masha Dikareva Scott.
click to enlarge Elka Schumann, the 'Heart and Soul' of Bread and Puppet, Dies
Sally Pollak ©️ Seven Days
Peter and Elka Schumann

Walking through the memorial village two summers ago, Elka stopped at a site in the grove of trees and listened to Peter as he talked about people dear to them whose names he had carved on a board to mark their deaths.

When he got to the last name, where space had run out on the carving, Elka said: "Peter, you really should make another board."

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Friday, July 2, 2021

Posted By on Fri, Jul 2, 2021 at 9:49 AM

click to enlarge 251: A Mini Art Gallery in Middlebury
Sally Pollak ©️ Seven Days
Free Little Art Gallery at the Henry Sheldon Museum in Middlebury
The Henry Sheldon Museum of Vermont History in Middlebury will open on July 13, marking the return of visitors to the museum after an 18-month absence. But a small annex of the museum — emphasis on small — is currently open daily from dawn to dusk. The mini delight on Park Street is a make-it, take-it gallery similar in size and feel to a free little street library.

The Free Little Art Gallery is housed in a glass case at the entrance to the Sheldon’s lovely flower garden. Its contents change as people contribute a piece of art they make or select one to take. Drawings on paper, paintings on canvas and a ceramic vessel were among the pieces on display early this week. A clutch of yellow flowers set below an abstract painting echoed a hue on the canvas.

Sheldon Museum associate director Mary Manley read about a similar gallery in Seattle and thought it would be neat to make one in Middlebury, she said.  Then, last spring, a free little gallery opened in Essex Junction.

Manley said she’s hopeful similar galleries will pop up around the state.  A June 5 article in the Washington Post describes a national trend of Free Little Art Galleries, or FLAGs.

click to enlarge 251: A Mini Art Gallery in Middlebury
Sally Pollak ©️ Seven Days
Free Little Art Gallery in Middlebury
The Sheldon's gallery  is designed on a scale of 1:12, in which one inch is a foot in a standard gallery. It’s intended for works of art, as opposed to miniatures like doll house furniture or trinkets.  Size-appropriate canvases lean against a wall for the taking — an offering of en-
click to enlarge 251: A Mini Art Gallery in Middlebury
Sally Pollak ©️ Seven Days
Free Little Art Gallery in Middlebury
couragement for would-be artists.  Mounting material is provided to hang art.

“People who are established artists have participated, as well as young kids,” Manley said. “It’s been really fun. We encourage the community to take part."

The tiny museum in front of the big one — the latter a repository of regional art, objects and history that opened in 1884 — can be appreciated in a matter of moments. But let it welcome you to the grounds of the Sheldon with its beautiful plantings, sculptures, and stone benches — a peaceful oasis in the center of Middlebury.

click to enlarge 251: A Mini Art Gallery in Middlebury
Sally Pollak ©️ Seven Days
Kate Pond sculpture at the Henry Sheldon Museum in Middlebury
These days, the garden also presents a preview of sculptor Kate Pond’s forthcoming exhibit at the Sheldon, “From the Heart: A Sculptor’s Process." Three sculptures by the Burlington-based artist are in the garden, including a maquette of  "Kiss #2," her piece in front of the Fletcher Free Library in Burlington.

How wonderful that a renowned artist's metal sculpture shares space on the grass with a child’s drawing of a rainbow.

"Come by and come often," Manley said of the people's gallery. "Because it changes."
click to enlarge 251: A Mini Art Gallery in Middlebury
Sally Pollak ©️ Seven Days
Garden entrance to the Henry Sheldon Museum

251 is a series of on-the-road stories, coming soon to a town near you.

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Friday, May 14, 2021

Posted By on Fri, May 14, 2021 at 5:21 PM

Potter Jeremy Ayers Fends Off Corporate Copycat
Courtesy of Jessica Sipe
Jeremy Ayers in his studio
When is imitation not the sincerest form of flattery? When it's actually a rip-off.

Vermont potter Jeremy Ayers recently learned from an observant Instagram follower that a corporate behemoth appeared to have copied one of his designs. Clothing and home goods retailer Anthropologie was offering a mug that looked suspiciously like one Ayers has been making for the past decade.

It's a distinctive design — striped glaze, "accordion" shape. But Anthropologie's version had a crucial difference: "The handle sucks," Ayers wrote on his Facebook page. Indeed, any experienced potter — or frequent holder of mugs — could see that the semi-circular handle of the Anthropologie mug is not hand-friendly.

And, of course, there was another key difference: price. Anthropologie's mug was priced at $14.99, Ayers said. His mugs, thrown one at a time in the artisan's Waterbury studio, sell for $40 apiece.

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Wednesday, March 17, 2021

Posted By on Wed, Mar 17, 2021 at 6:00 PM

click to enlarge Judge Says Vermont Law School Can Cover Controversial Murals
Khwaneigq | Dreamstime.com
In an order last week, a judge denied a preliminary injunction filed by artist Sam Kerson to stop his mural at Vermont Law School from being covered on the grounds that covering it would violate a federal statute protecting artwork. Kerson, the judge wrote on March 10, “is unlikely to succeed on the merits in this case.”

VLS is free to install acoustic panels on a frame in front of the mural, which the school says will not touch or damage the painting in any way. Kerson, who filed suit in December in U.S. District Court, wanted to halt that construction for the duration of the trial.

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Thursday, February 11, 2021

Posted By on Thu, Feb 11, 2021 at 4:10 PM

click to enlarge Katie Runde to Paint Alexander Twilight Portrait for the Statehouse (2)
Courtesy of the Old Stone House Museum
Alexander Twilight
Middlebury artist Katie Runde has been commissioned to paint a portrait of Alexander Twilight to hang in the Vermont Statehouse, which will make him the first person of color featured in a portrait there.

Twilight, believed to be both the first African American college graduate and first African American legislator in the U.S., was a Brownington-based educator and minister who lived from 1795 to 1857. He was elected as a Vermont State Representative in 1836. Last year, state lawmakers established September 23, 2020, as Alexander Twilight Day.

The portrait was commissioned jointly by the Friends of the Vermont State House and the office of the Vermont State Curator and is being funded by the National Life Group of Vermont.

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Friday, December 11, 2020

Posted By on Fri, Dec 11, 2020 at 2:58 PM

click to enlarge At Bennington Museum, Artworks That Envision the Future Could Be Yours
Courtesy of Bennington Museum
"Beginning of February" by Kathleen Kolb
Looking for an out-of-the-ordinary holiday exhibition, or gift? The Bennington Museum’s current show, “Vermont Utopias: Imagining the Future,” features visual artworks by 25 artists that are available for purchase through an online auction.

The auction is closed-bid, meaning bids are submitted without knowledge of other bids, so you won’t know if you’ve won the piece until bidding closes on December 21. The fundraiser will split proceeds evenly between the artists and the museum.

The museum is open for in-person viewing Fridays through Mondays, 10 a.m. to 4. p.m. But for those who can't get there, or prefer to avoid human contact altogether, simply browsing the exhibition online is a pleasure.

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Tuesday, December 8, 2020

Posted By on Tue, Dec 8, 2020 at 1:57 PM

click to enlarge In New 3D-Printed Sculpture, Otters Attack Middlebury's Town Hall Theater
Courtesy of Daniel Houghton
"Mutant Otters Destroy Town Hall Theater" by Daniel Houghton
Shoppers, strollers and post office-goers in downtown Middlebury may notice a new artwork in the window of the National Bank of Middlebury: a miniature replica of the Town Hall Theater being attacked by giant, mutant otters.

The sculpture, dubbed "Mutant Otters Destroy Town Hall Theater," is by Daniel Houghton, the director of the Middlebury College Animation Studio. Houghton dreamed up the project in September, designed it using a computer program and produced it on a 3D printer, documenting his progress weekly in a series of videos posted to YouTube.

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Tuesday, October 13, 2020

Posted By on Tue, Oct 13, 2020 at 4:36 PM

click to enlarge From a Montpelier Porch, an Art Installation Joins an International Festival
Alisa Dworsky-Danny Sagan
"Interspace" seen at night
Alisa Dworsky and Danny Sagan, married architects, artists and educators at Norwich University, are participating in an international art festival without leaving home. On the porch of their house in Montpelier, the couple has constructed an installation called "Interspace" that can be seen not only by locals but by anyone in the world who cares to look.

CEC ArtsLink, an international arts organization with an office in St. Petersburg, Russia, hosts Art Prospect, its seventh annual public art festival, from October 15 to 18. Normally an on-site event with physical and augmented-reality installations, the event has perforce gone online because, well — what isn't virtual in 2020?

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Friday, September 25, 2020

Posted By on Fri, Sep 25, 2020 at 1:11 PM

click to enlarge New Anti-Racist Mural Rises at Champlain Elementary
Margaret Grayson ©️ Seven Days
The Afronaut mural at Champlain Elementary
A new mural at Champlain Elementary School in Burlington was completed this week by artists Will Kasso Condry and Jennifer Herrera Condry, with the help of their daughter, Alexa, and dozens of local children.

The colorful, Afrofuturist mural was originally intended for another South End wall, but was rejected by the business owner. Soon after, the mural's commissioners, tenants of the Soda Plant on Pine Street, started a crowdfunding campaign and issued a citywide “Call for a Wall.”

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