Published on February 24, 2010

Photographer John Miller takes time to speak with a pair of his models and their family. Catherine and Elizabeth Miller are students at Holland Elementary School, where they were photographed as they participated in the school’s gardening program. Their mother, Claudine Currier, stands at left. Behind the girls are their grandparents, Pasquale and Sarah Silvestri. Photo by Joseph Gresser

NEWPORT — In the past the Vermont Arts Council promoted travelling exhibits, such as the puzzle and palette projects that presented a view of art as simply a fun activity.  This year the organization has taken a radically different tack.

With inspiration and support from Lyman Orton of the Vermont Country Store, the council has mounted The Art of Action, a show that makes a strong case for visual art’s place in any discussion of the state’s present and future.

Mr. Orton writes in the exhibit catalogue that the show came about when he decided he wanted to expand his collection of Vermont art with art about the future of the state.  The result was a call for artists to create work inspired by a report produced by the Commission on the Future of Vermont (CFV).

Newport residents can see the show upstairs at the Goodrich Memorial Library.  At this stop the importance of the idea that art can contribute to

Pianist Cody Michaels plays for visitors at Goodrich Memorial Library. The large image at the center of the photograph is the “Disneyfication of Vermont” by Phillip Godenschwager, depicting the state as a series of amusement park attractions. Photo by Joseph Gresser

one’s view of the future is underlined by a showing of renderings of the Newport of tomorrow that came out of last year’s visit by architects and planners sponsored by American Institute of Architects.

About 300 artists submitted proposals, and ten were chosen.  John Miller of Coventry was the only photographer in the group, which otherwise was composed of painters.  Where the project got interesting was in the range of approaches to the show’s theme.

Phillip Godenschwager submitted a series of shaped canvases that use cartoony imagery to portray the development pressures faced by Vermont.  In “I Got My Piece” a horde of grabby urban towers surrounds a parcel of greenery representing Vermont.  Their hands clutch at and tear away pieces of the state.

“The Disneyfication of Vermont,” is a free-standing piece whose low-relief surface shows the state turned into an array of amusement park attractions, including a tractor carousel and a shoot-a-moose booth.

Kathleen Kolb is well known as a watercolorist and a former resident of Greensboro.  Her contributions to The Art of Action are oil paintings showing different aspects of forestry.  A group of high school students is seen at work in the woods in one painting, in another a dog plays in the golden light of autumn as his master files a chainsaw nearby.  The end of this activity is portrayed in a nocturne depicting a chip truck delivering its load to a wood-gasification plant at Middlebury College.

A young visitor to the Art of Action’s opening reception Sunday gives careful attention to paintings by Susan Abbott. The reception was well attended and, at times, crowded. Photo by Joseph Gresser

Curtis Hale of St. Johnsbury has a different take on a classic Vermont subject — bridges.  His, though, are not the covered ones of a thousand clichéd scenes, but those that move goods into and out of the state, iron railroad trestles and interstate overpasses.  Mr. Hale approaches his subjects from odd angles.  The viewer glimpses one railroad through a clump of trees at the edge of a newly tilled garden.  The garden theme is continued in the depiction of a jumble of bridges at the edge of a railway yard.

Roads are among the subjects pondered by Susan Abbott, whose work for the show consists of panels of four paintings, each treating a single subject through the state’s four seasons.  To the right of each set of four is a fifth painting that shows an undesirable future.

Her series of downtowns shows scenes of Vermont towns depicted in supersaturated colors.  A group of people sit on a spring evening in front of a row of storefronts, while the summer scene depicts the bridges of Montpelier.  Ms. Abbott contrasts these idyllic village scenes with a gray Walmart parking lot.

There is nothing gray about the works contributed by Gail Boyajian and David Brewster.  Mr. Brewster’s frenzied brushwork frames a phantasmagoric image of a new Vermont, with crows soaring above giant wind towers and icy trees toppling into a listing collection of houses.  In one of his images a pair of women dance together in front of a church while two men kiss, framed by a tube of a wind tower laying on the ground.

Mr. Brewster is equally exuberant about new sources of energy and new social norms.

Ms. Boyajian is also possessed by her fancies.  Her meticulously rendered landscapes show an ideal of the future Vermont, with guest appearances by such notable state residents as Calvin Coolidge, shown fishing in a limpid summer stream, and Robert Frost sitting on a rock wall in the corner of a paradisiacal farm scene.  Each of her works is brightened by carefully observed portraits of local birds, which will also enjoy this bright future.

Annemie Curlin reaches backward for inspiration in a set of paintings that use elements taken from the books of hours characteristic of the early northern renaissance.  Each page of Ms. Curlin’s book shows activities associated with a particular month.  Only February, with its witty take on the traditional sheepcote of her models directly quotes from its source, but the images of human activity through the year, such as the urban garden that represents July, speaks to a concrete vision of a future Vermont.

Island Pond artist Janet McKenzie turns her meditative eye on a present phenomenon that will surely have its effect on the state in years to come —

Island Pond artist Janet McKenzie’s “Invitation to Hope,” portrays Vermont’s increasing cultural diversity through the images of woman of African, European and Asian heritage. Photo courtesy of the Vermont Arts Council.

the slowly increasing number of residents who do not fit the model of white Vermonters of European descent.

From her simple canvases with their shallow pictorial space, women and men of varied cultural heritages gaze out at us or stand with eyes averted suffering our gaze.  These portraits do not give up their secrets quickly and repay extended scrutiny.

In his series of “pigmented digital collages” John Miller, arranged photographic images of varied sizes to create a thematic mosaic.  A portrait of Pete Johnson of Pete’s Greens is surrounded by small images of young sprouts and root vegetables.  To its right the portrait is balanced by a photograph of young gardeners participating in a school-based agriculture program in Holland.

Young trail maintenance workers from NorthWoods Stewardship Center in East Charleston brandish the tools of their trade in a rocky glade.  Around them smaller photos of those implements are arrayed.  Leaves in a surrounding frame dwarf the helmets hanging in a picture of the workers’ toolshed.

“Vermont Working Landscape: Variation 5,” by John Miller, shows a trail repair crew from the NorthWoods Stewardship Center along with their equipment, and leaves. Photo courtesy of the Vermont Arts Council

The collages balance the timeless nature of working in nature with the images of those who are carrying out that work today.

The Art of Action is a travelling show that will be up at the Goodrich through February 27.  It will next travel to St. Johnsbury showing from March 5 at St. Johnsbury Academy.

John Zwick, who is coordinating the project for the council, said Mr. Orton liked the idea of presenting the shows in alternate spaces, places in which regular people feel comfortable.

Mr. Zwick said the hosts for the exhibits don’t have to make a financial contribution, but are responsible for publicity, setting up related public events, and shipping to the next venue.

Sometimes donated shipping can have odd results.  He recalled the day that trucks belonging to the McKenzie meatpacking company delivered the show to the Burlington International Airport.  When the works were uncrated they gave off the aroma of bacon, Mr. Zwick said, beaming at the thought.

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