Let Me Show You Vermont

Plainfield

2011-11-13T13:12:00.011-05:00

In the thirty-eight miles of railroad between Montpelier and Wells River, there is only one full-length mile of straight track--and that is in Plainfield!...Charles Edward Crane

I'm not quite sure why Mr. Crane thought it was so remarkable that the only straight track on that rail route he describes above was in Plainfield, but I would have to agree that "straight" is definitely not a word that I'd associate with this town at the bottom of my hill. "Quirky" and "sleepy" are more what come to mind when I drive down to Plainfield to shop at the co-op or pick up a pizza.

Plainfield lies along both sides of Route 2, that busy two-laner that runs across the northern U.S. Even before this major road was paved in the early 1900's, Plainfield was an enterprising place, with farms in the hills and valleys, and mills and hotels on the ponds and streams. The Winooski River attracted both tourists and small industries, and the rail line shipped milk and butter, wood and textiles. Little Plainfield could take care of itself.

Nowadays things are diferent, and Plainfield has the feel of being a bit of an afterthought along the highway, more of a place to ride through on your way to somewhere else than a destination. When I've stood on the sidewalk painting in Plainfield (and you can't help absorbing your surroundings when you are standing behind an easel) I've been unhappily surprised at the amount of noisy truck traffic driving through town, and by how many young folks walking by me look like they've already seen better days. It's a place that seems like it could use some good old 19th century industry and tourism...

But--I've also discovered that Plainfield offers plenty to see and do, if you get out of your car or out from behind your easel and do some exploring. There's a fine natural foods co-op that's charmingly sited next to an historic cemetery. The Country Bookshop, housed in an old cape on Mill Street, is good for hours of browsing (and had THREE different editions of "The Education of Henry Adams" available when the urge to own that book came on me recently.) Strangely enough, tiny Plainfield used to have two nationally famous restaurants (Chinese and Southern) and then had a tapas place, but now is down to a sole tasty Italian establishment. The town's two blocks also host an art gallery and a yoga studio, a shop for artisan beer makers and a bead store.

This arty and eclectic mix of commerce gives a hint of why I'm glad I settled up the hill from Plainfield. If you throw a stick into the woods around here, you will probably hit a painter, a poet, a potter, and/or an eccentric. That's probably true of much of Vermont, but in these environs the concentration of non-conformists is especially thick because of Goddard College. Goddard was conceived by it's founders in the 1860's as a progressive educational institution that would foster "plain living and hard thinking". By the 1960's it was a free-spirited anti-institution that attracted oddballs from around the country who grew up to be my very interesting and accomplished neighbors.

So if the only thing straight about Plainfield is the railroad track--now a bike trail--that's fine with us.

Hurricane Irene!

2011-09-07T21:40:00.003-04:00

Many of the towns I've visited, sketched, and profiled on this blog have been severely damaged by flooding brought by the torrential downpours of Hurricane Irene on August 28th. As I continue to travel around the state in the coming months, I'll be posting what I'm seeing--and I'm guessing I'll see many places untouched by damage, many hard at work rebuilding, and a few that are changed forever.

Meanwhile, to help out on the rebuilding front, I'm offering the painted photos that illustrate this blog for sale at a discounted price, and I'm donating 100% of sales to flood relief efforts in Vermont. You can take a look here for more information, including how to purchase.

Another way you can help Vermont is to come and visit! Most of the state is open for exploring, and as you have seen from this blog, there are endless dirt roads waiting for you and your sketchbook (or camera)...

Royalton

2011-07-17T15:29:00.011-04:00

If it be necessary to startle the reader into an appreciation of Vermont's place in education, I can bring up the fact that the state has contributed two important factors--that it "invented" the professionally prepared teacher and the school blackboard. What school could operate today without such essentials?...Charles Edward Crane

I drove into Royalton last week (South Royalton, strictly speaking, which along with North Royalton and Royalton Village make up the town of Royalton, in true confusing Vermont fashion) on my meandering way home from an errand. "I have to get that blog going again!", I remonstrated to myself as I was driving the byways of my beautiful state, and myself answered, "Yes, get on with it!"--which I am happy to be now doing.

In looking up the history of Royalton, I came on this information: "The Vermont Charter reserved five lots of land: one each to support a seminary or college, a County Grammer School, the settlement of a Minister of the Gospel, churches in town, and town schools...58 Proprietors had to plant and cultivate five acres of land and construct a house of at least Eighteen feet square on each share of land or the land would revert to the Freemen of the State..it also reserved, for the benefit of the state, all pine timber suitable for a navy."

So I wonder what the patriotic Americans of today, who fight every tax and government decree, think about this town charter of our founding fathers? It certainly put the good of the many above the profit of the few. Something to ponder upon, no?

Also worth pondering is South Royalton's interesting Queen Anne architecture, and spacious town green with gazebo, memorial arch, and Civil War soldier. Fronting the green is a substantial brick business block, where a hungry wayfarer or peckish law student can find an ice cream parlor, bar and grill, or natural foods coop.

South Royalton is the only town in Vermont that needs to cater to the sensitive stomachs of law students, as it's the only town with a law school. Fittingly for our state, Vermont Law School is ranked as having the best environmental law program in the country.

South Royalton also has a very nice train station, and Amtrak's Vermonter still runs by. VLS students also run by the train station on their way to happy hour at the Crossroads Bar and Grill (as one law student wrote on the bar's website, "the scar on my left knee from tripping over the train tracks to get to your doors will forever remind me of all the good, the bad, the ugly times had therein...")

I need to get back to Royalton soon, both to have a beer at the Crossroads, and to take a look at the other two parts of town. But if I am going to keep this blog going, I need to move on up Route 14 while I still have some gas in my tank, and some light in the Vermont summer sky...

Mt. Tabor

2010-11-01T16:44:00.013-04:00

When I can't sleep I do not count an endless line of sheep, but, with my mind's ear, I listen to the hum of industry in the old woolen-weaving mill which I knew in my youth...I am surprised every time that I take inventory of the many things made and invented in Vermont..." Charles Edward Crane

During my long hiatus from posting, I've been traveling abroad to teach or paint, or holed up here on the hill, working in my studio . But enough's enough! It's time to drive dirt roads, and show you, and myself, more of Vermont.

While I've been away from this blog, I've been busy with a series of paintings inspired by Mt. Tabor, a little settlement that lies along Route 7 in the southern part of the state. This crossroads of train tracks and highway, with its old feed towers, depot and storage sheds, is a very interesting place to anyone with an eye for color and composition.
But Mt. Tabor also has a story to tell us about Vermont's past. This town, like most in the area, was founded in the late 1700's by immigrants from southern New England. From the beginning, Mt. Tabor (or more properly, "Harwick", as it was originally called until changed in the early 1800's to avoid confusion with an identically named town) was probably an easy place to miss. Travelers between the busy burghs of Manchester and Rutland have never had much reason to visit this quiet community backed up against Green Mountain wilderness.

Even today it can be difficult (as with so many of the 251 towns of Vermont) to find the center of Mt. Tabor. What I know of it are a few visually intoxicating blocks between Mill and Brooklyn Roads next to Route 7. But-- is this really Mt. Tabor, or is it Danby, a larger and more prepossessing neighbor? Well, let's leave that quibbling to the tax listers, and look more closely at MY Mt. Tabor.
Instead of a steepled church or village green, the heart of this tiny Vermont community is a grain mill. First established in the early 1900's, Crosby & Sons built a reputation for offering area dairy farms top quality feed. Then, as now, heat is essential for surviving the winter in Vermont, and Crosby sold coal that was hauled in on daily trains, eventually adapting to changing times with fuel oil and pellet stoves.
Today the overgrown, deserted train station is a beautiful but sad place, looking like it could be haunted by the ghosts of prosperous farm wives heading off to Rutland to spend egg money on the latest calico. More happily, the tracks running beside the station are again in use by very slow but steady Vermont Railway freight trains.

Mt. Tabor's past, and the history of the state, and of the United States, is embodied in these buildings and this landscape. Our national prosperity was built on the foundation of three pillars: agriculture, industry, and transportation. In this tiny community's grain elevators, silos, train tracks and loading docks, some in ruins, some still in use, we can see our prosperous past, hard-working present, and, maybe, our precarious future.

Dover

2010-01-23T11:16:00.011-05:00

And you may come upon old cemeteries with the dates in the 1700's half hidden by rank growths of phlox or grasses. Or you may mount to some sleeping Tibet-like village, like Dover Common, and from the plateau thereabouts get Walt Whitman's sense of "the earth expanding, right hand and left hand"... Charles Edward Crane

After a month of travel to the distant climes of rainy Oregon and the balmy Bahamas, I'm happy to be back on wintery roads for a spell. Let's head north from Wilmington as we continue a meandering jaunt through towns in Vermont's lower corners.

Dover is somewhat confusedly spread between West Dover, East Dover, and miniscule Dover proper (the smallest typeface of the three in my Vermont gazetteer). These three areas of Dover township are united by Dover Hill Road, but seem to have very different, competing personalities.

From their founding in the late 1700's up to the 1940's, West and East Dover were difficult to span. Though less than seven miles divided the two parts of town , they were a long-distance call away from each other in summer, and an impassable distance in winter snow and muddy spring. By the early 1900's, both East and West Dover had shrunk to a sparse population of struggling farmers and old-money summer visitors.

All that changed with in the early 1950's when Walter Schoenknecht of Connecticut bought the Reuben Snow farm (the name alone would have recommended the purchase) and began the taming of wild Mt. Pisgah into the trails, lodges and condos of Mt. Snow. West Dover's rutted Route 8 was replaced by Route 100, which began its paved life as an access road for the ski industry, and is now one of our main north-south thoroughfares.

Along with development at the West Dover mountain came a golf course, ski academy, restaurants and hotels (replacing the spare bedrooms and kitchens tables of local farms, which for decades comprised the rural Vermont tourist industry.) And along with new jobs and tax dollars came problems that threatened Dover's environment and sense of self--and helped spur the state to enact our land-protecting Act 250.

With over 600,000 tourists visiting every year, Dover's 1,500 permanent residents must sometimes wonder how to keep their town's authentic Vermont personality from becoming a caricature that exists only to serve the ski industry . The Dover Historical Society seems to be hard at work on this mission, offering exhibits and meetings to give visitors a sense of the rich past of the place they may otherwise only see from a ski lift.

Wilmington

2009-12-13T12:17:00.014-05:00

Averill's Stand near the present village of Wilmington serves as a reminder of the time when inns or ordinaries served as overnight stopping-places for the stages and six-horse freight teams that traversed the Molly Stark Trail over the mountains to Troy and the Erie Canal...Gone are these old places...Charles Edward Crane

I rolled down Route 9 past Searsburg and Medburyville (or so the map told me), and was surprised at the bottom of the hill to find myself in a real town, and one that I had never heard of before--Wilmington. I pulled out my trusty iphone to see if the internet could explain where the heck I was, and found the very informative town website, full of facts, figures and photos, and plenty of helpful municipal information, including a quote from Plato on the value of a just citizenry.

And Wilmington is justly proud of its Memorial Hall, designed by the renowned New York firm of McKim, Mead (a native of Brattleboro) & White--yes, that would be Stanford White, the most famous American architect of the 19th century. Peek through the front door, because though the hall is plain and brown as a Puritan saltbox on the outside, the interior is an astounding miniature version of Boston's Symphony Hall, with acoustics to match. Right before the turn of the century, local Civil War hero and Wilmington’s richest citizen Major Childs had a hunch that the economic future of Vermont was in tourism, and he hired Stanford White to design this concert hall and the handsome adjoining Child's Tavern, now Crafts Inn. (There were, and are, a high volume of well-moneyed, well-meaning enterprising eccentrics tucked away in our unassuming Vermont hamlets.) In 1891 the railroad finally reached Wilmington, and fulfilled Child's prediction: his town became a tourists' mecca.

I'll have to come back for another hour's stroll up East and down West Main Street, and take a longer and better look at the wealth of architecture in the little town of Wilmington. Dot's Restaurant ("A National Treasure!" according to the late, lamented Gourmet magazine) beckons, and a number of little shops invite. Most of all, I'd be happy to stand on Main Street Bridge and look up the little river that meanders through the little town of Wilmington like slow, unstoppable time .

Woodford

2009-12-03T10:53:00.018-05:00

This is the southernmost cross-state road in Vermont (Brattleboro to Bennington)...I once had a New York guest who had come that way over Hogback in the late afternoon, and the next morning before the rest of us were out of bed we discovered that he had got up and driven back twenty miles up Hogback to drink in that view once more...Charles Edward Crane

Woodford is the kind of Vermont town that you pass on the road before recognizing you've entered or left it--then turning around in someone's driveway (hoping he's not glaring suspiciously out his window) you head back the way you came, still searching for some sign of local identity.

Woodford is so lacking a center that it's sarcastically referred to by local scoffers as "Woodford City" ("Woodford City Stream" and "Woodford City Road" can be found in my Vermont atlas, so the insult seems to have stuck.) But like so many other nondescript, seemingly non-towns in Vermont, interesting discoveries reward closer examination.

I found out that Woodford is defined by its altitude, not its architecture. At 2,2oo feet, it's the highest town in the state (and 400 residents make it one of the smallest towns.) Woodford sits at this great height in the middle of Green Mountain Forest wilderness. Fortunately for local residents, 398 acres of these spruce, fir and birches, lakes, ponds and rills have been set aside for camping, hiking and fishing. This highest state park in Vermont also bears the proud name of "Woodford".

Route 9 between Bennington and Brattleboro is sometimes called the "Molly Stark Trail". Molly's husband, General John Stark, was instrumental in repelling the British near Bennington, thereby turning the tide of the Revolutionary War. (His famous battle cry was, "The Red Coats and the Tories...are ours, or this night Molly Stark sleeps a widow!", and fortunately for all of us, she didn't.) But Molly is also honored with place names all around southern Vermont in her own right as a selfless nurse and brave patriot.

This Molly Stark trail heading east from Bennington is one of the loveliest, and also loneliest, stretches of two-lane road in the state. Rolling down from the apex of "Woodford City", I admire the people who live so comfortably isolated here, every night falling asleep amidst mile upon mile of silent mystery.

Bennington

2009-11-28T20:13:00.030-05:00

Vermont was born in a hotel. The Green Mountain Tavern in Bennington, known as Catamount Inn, had as a sign a stuffed catamount lion grinning toward New York. Here the Green Mountain Boys gathered. Here New York sympathizers were delivered for the high chair treatment--hoisting in a chair of ignominy from the porch roof. Here Ethan Allen planned the taking of Ticonderoga. Here the pioneers drank, not only with their eyes, but lustlily with rum to the new republic, as is evidenced by Allen's tap-room bill, still preserved...Charles Edward Crane

I'm happy to say I'm back on the Vermont road again, after a summer and fall of painting deadlines and travels far from my home state. Thank you, dear readers, for a long, patient wait! Let's take up where we left off, on Route 7 heading north into Bennington near the New York border.

Bennington is large enough to have sections with distinct personalities and histories ("Old", "North" and "Downtown"), and venerable enough to have played an important role in the drama of the founding of both the "Republic" of Vermont and the independent United States. A walk in Old Bennington takes you past buildings haunted by righteously angry ghosts--from the Old First Church (the original Protestant congregation in Vermont), to the site of the Catamount Tavern (in the 1770's the favorite watering hole of revolutionary conspirators against the powers of New York and England) and finally up to the heights of the Battle Monument obelisk.

The Battle of Bennington actually took place right across the border in New York, but it was fought by area farmers and woodsmen. British and Prussian troops (worn out by fanatical Monty Python-style precision drilling) were sure they would have no problem raiding Vermont for stores and ammunition on their march south to finish business with the rebellious colonies. Instead the royal army was defeated in a rout, and Bennington went down in history as one of the few battles where improvised troops beat trained contingents. As captured General Burgoyne wrote to his rulers in England, Vermont was a place "that abounds with the most active and rebellious race on the continent, and hangs, like a gathering storm, on my left." (Enter, 230 years later, Senator Bernie Sanders.)

You'll leave the ghosts of our political revolution and encounter remnants of the Industrial Revolution as you drive east into downtown Bennington. Textile and paper mills, iron furnaces and grist mills all provided jobs and fed the local economy until Vermont manufacturers could no longer compete with cheaper products.

This loss of industry was widespread--but one manufacturer from the 19th century that has survived and flourished to the present day is Bennington Pottery--an example of the importance of artistry as well as functionality in a product. Another survivor from the past is artsy Bennington College, founded in 1932 as an experiment in "self-dependence" for its mostly female student body. (All the Bennington graduates I know, including a guy, are smart and creative people, so the experiment must have worked.)

Driving out of town, I kept pulling the car over to the curb to get a closer, slower look at Bennington's old architecture. Some of these mills, stables, factories and homes look lovingly restored, some are reinvigorated and put to new uses, and some are decaying and seem forgotten in time. Each of these glimpses down an old sidewalk or back street evokes this town's long lost past, and seems to hold some meaning (even if I can't quite grasp it) for our future.

Pownal

2009-06-01T10:40:00.007-04:00

Commonly chosen routes for getting north are the cemented highays, U.S. 7 on the west...known as the Ethan Allen Highway, and for all its length it has associations with the Green Mountain Boys and the early history of Vermont. The gateway is at Pownal...and after a lung-filling and eye-filling view from the Pownal road you are soon in Bennington...Charles Edward Crane

Last week I found myself one warm, sunny morning driving across the southern border of Vermont, thinking about how my nineteen year old son would soon be walking across the same state line with a sixty pound pack on his back. I had just dropped him off at the start of the Long Trail in Williamstown, Massachusetts, where he was setting off for a three week, 270 mile trek along the ridge of the Green Mountains all the way to Canada. The Long Trail is the oldest long-distance hiking path in the U.S., and was the inspiration for the more-famous Appalachian Trail.

Like so many Vermont (and American, as Alexis de Tocqueville noted) enterprises, the Long Trail was conceived, built and maintained by visionary volunteers. The original dreamer was James P. Taylor, who one morning in 1910 while waiting for the mist to clear from the top of Stratton Mountain had the rather crazy idea of a path that could run through the Greens from the top to the bottom of Vermont.

The state's peaks had been largely unappreciated and unused for recreation until Taylor decided to help "make the Vermont mountains play a larger part in the life of the people." His dream took its first step towards reality at a small gathering of outdoor enthusiasts in Burlington, the first of a hundred years of meetings (and subsequent trail clearings) by the Green Mountain Club.

So while my son began his adventure ten miles behind and a thousand feet above me, I drove into the Pownal valley, and as usual when coming back to Vermont felt myself slip a bit back in time.

When I used to drive from Washington to Lake Champlain for summer vacations, I usually crossed into Vermont on Route 7, and I remembered the area for the creepy greyhound race track that was visible from the road. It's been vacant for over ten years now, though plans for some interesting commercial development (including a farmer's market) are in the works.

Now you can see vestiges of the tourism industry of our grandparent's time. I always covet these little guesthouses that are still settled along rivers all over the state, and want to take one up to our back acres, a retreat for mini-vacations at home.

Pownal has a long and complicated history, settled first by native Americans eons ago, then claimed by the Dutch in the late 1600's and finally passing later that century into English hands. By the Revolutionary War, settlers began arriving to the town (named for the head of the Massachusetts Bay Colony) from the more crowded Southern parts of New England. Their claims set the stage for a brewing war with wealthy New Yorkers who thought they'd been granted the same Vermont acres by England, a simmer that was to come to a full boil during the Revolutionary War when towns like Pownal split between Tories and Green Mountain Boys. Guess who won!

An itinerant minister was less than impressed with free and independent Pownal when he came over the mountain for a visit in 1789: “Pawnal ye first town, poor land – very unpleasant – very uneven – miserable set of inhabitants – no religion..." That was HIS opinion, anyway; the Pownalers would have probably answered him disdainfully with a pithy retort about private beliefs and personal responsibility.

By the 1900's Pownal did have churches, plus ten schools, textile mills (a Lewis Hine image of “Anemic Little Spinner in North Pownal Cotton Mill" helped inspire the first child labor law), and a Berkshires to Bennington electric railroad. The mills are gone forever, but maybe the train will be back.

Until then, to visit the town of Pownal take a short detour from Route 7 to Route 346, which will also allow you to see North Pownal (look sharp or you'll end up in New York) and best of all, drive the back roads to Bennington.

More about Pownal

Castleton

2009-05-17T23:00:00.002-04:00

The Bibical injunction is "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house," but I sin that sin every time I ride about Vermont... Charles Edward Crane

Castleton is home to one of our state's small public college's (originally one of the country's first medical schools) as well as the locus of about the nicest possible conglomeration of nineteenth century architecture. The town has a long and storied history. In 1775 Ethan Allen and a large pack of the Green Mountain boys galluped down Main Street (no doubt much to the alarm and disgust of the staid Puritan residents) and over brews at the Remington tavern plotted their attack on the British at Fort Ticonderoga.

Castleton continued to grow as a farming community following the war, and during the nineteenth century the slate and marble industries thrived. Lovely nearby Lake Bomoseen became a vacation mecca with luxury hotels and trolley service to town--a transportation innovation whose time should come again!

Industry and agriculture flourished, and residents along Main Street replaced log cabins with dignified Federal and Greek Revival mansions. Some of the most remarkable were built by homegrown architectural wunderkind Thomas Dake, especially famous for the elegance of his residential staircases.

Fires, the scourge of pre-electrical civilization, devastated much of the town's center in the early twentieth century, and Castleton's prosperity subsequently declined. But it remains one of the loveliest villages in the state, and I'd argue with any New Yorker that no town over their border (just seven miles away) can compare.

Ira

2009-04-23T19:30:00.007-04:00

The visitor whisking along Vermont's highways would conclude that an industry so tied to the soil and to livestock as farming would be 'well-rooted and stabilized.' As a matter of fact, fundamental as farming is, it is fickle...nothing about it is so constant as change... Charles Edward Crane

I've been off of the winding Vermont road for almost a month, concentrating on a stint of teaching and my Art of Action "Elements of Place" series. It's good to be back behind the wheel with my well-worn sketchbook on the passenger seat.

Before my hiatus I had navigated a jaunt from Rutland to West Rutland, Castleton, Middleton Springs, Wallingford, and Clarendon (see previous postings). This could have been a neat circular trip, but it started in an erratic way: leaving Castleton, where I had given a lecture on my painting at the college, I had to make a quick decision whether to take two lane local Route 4a east, or the high speed bypass Route 4. I chose speed, and regretted it immediately. Since our highways don't have many exits I was forced to keep driving towards Rutland.

My eyes darted yearningly across the Otter River that lay on my right and towards parallel Route 4a, as though it was the yellow brick road and I just had to see up close what wonders lay along it (especially that mysterious large dairy farm that I had driven by so many times on my way to the Vermont border.)

So I exited the highway as soon as I could and backtracked towards Castleton again along the smaller road, thereby reaffirming the wisdom of Lesson Number One as I show myself Vermont: to hell with saving time.

The dairy farm, which had an amazing curved metal roof (see the painted photo above) didn't disappoint, and neither did the sad but picturesque tumbledown barn further along the way, or the long blue shadows cast by the overpass as I drove into West Rutland.

I have to admit, I came close to Ira but didn't exactly drive through it, let alone get out and walk the streets of a town named for legendary "Green Mountain Boy" Ira Allen. I'll have some more exploring to do the next time I chose the two instead of four lane option.

More about Ira

Clarendon

2009-03-18T12:00:00.009-04:00

No, there is still much unmapped character left here, and I find it more interesting than studying the crowds in the subway to drift among our people, never ceasing to wonder that there is some indefinable overtone in their character which somehow spells Vermont...Charles Edward Crane

Heading north out of Wallingford towards Rutland on Route 7 I saw a sign for Clarendon, and since an objective of this Vermont exploration is to try and fight my natural inclination towards inertia, I made a u-turn and drove back down the road in search of another town on my life list. But Clarendon proved elusive, and after finding the beautiful brick house with the satellite dish pictured above but no town center, I was back on the highway again driving north.

I found out later that this mysterious, hidden town of Clarendon has over 2,500 citizens, and is split between five villages. It began as Clarendon Springs, once one of the most popular spas in the region, and one of the few that was founded by a psychic. Asa Smith in 1776 dreamed the exact location of the healing waters right down to the details of their mineral composition. As he was a victim of "scrofulous humor", he had to stagger a painfully long way through deep forest to find the waters of his vision. But there it was as dreamed, and a drink did cure his ailments, and another thriving resort was born.

Clarendon Springs Hotel is still there, even if the crowds of elegant vacationers have vanished, and according to my google search looks to be for sale. Hopefully this graceful building will live to see another century.

Wallingford

2009-03-17T19:30:00.003-04:00

Paul Harris, who founded the International Rotarians, was brought up here in Wallingford by his grandparents, later moving to Chicago, where in a casual inspiration one day he founded the organization which has become so widespread...Charles Edward Crane

Wallingford was a pleasant surprise--in fact, I hadn't heard of the town until I saw its sign on Route 7 (which says more about my ignorance than Wallingford's obscurity). Though it's considered part of the Rutland "metro area", it feels very much like its own distinct place rather than an example of urban sprawl. The town is nice and compact, reflecting its original design: "six miles square was chosen because from anywhere within that area the distance to market, to church, or to town meeting could be traveled between morning and evening chores."

On the ever-amazing internet I found a 210 page history of Wallingford written in 1911, and even a quick perusal of this tome (I'll have to curl up in bed with my warm laptop on a chilly evening to read the rest) revealed the rich industrial and social past that seems to be the norm of even small Vermont towns. For example, in the early 19th century Wallingford was the home of the country's first fork (the kind used on hay, rather than on ham) factory. This very successful farm implement company was eventually bought out by True Temper, and their tools’ ash handles are still produced locally.

The prosperous founder of the original Wallingford farm tool company was a businessman "characterized by fairness, honesty and integrity, whose word was as good as his bond" (take note, 21st century scions of Wall Street!) Like so many other Vermonters, this Mr. Batcheller was also a staunch abolitionist who was willing to risk his own security by making his home a stop on the underground railway. And like most Vermont towns during the Great Rebellion, Wallingford answered the call of Lincoln with "far more than its proportional share" of soldiers and taxes.

Besides the extremely successful farm tool company, Wallingford was home to a grist mill, creamery and cheese factory that created "value added" products (shipped to Boston and also enjoyed locally) from surrounding farms' grain and milk.

Main Street, with its distinctive red brick town hall, and unusual multi-steepled church, is graceful and and antique enough to be listed on the National Register of Historic Places, as is an entire zone of nearby Otter Valley farm land. In my quick trip through I missed seeing that area, as well as the distinct villages of East and South Wallingford, so I definitely need to find my way back down Route 7 before the snow flies again.

Middletown Springs

2009-03-06T19:00:00.000-05:00

This professional tourist business is no new thing in Vermont. I think it began in 1805. I have found that in that year many persons came from Albany in a horse and buggy to visit the mineral springs which were then thought notable at Middletown Springs...it is strange, with Saratoga Springs so near, that these New Yorkers came to Vermont to take our waters...Charles Edward Crane

I've been out of the car and in my studio for the last few weeks, getting a good start on my Elements of Landscape series for the Art of Action project. But finally I could no longer resist the siren call of Route 100 South, and on a recent sunny Sunday ventured out on a circuitous path through Rutland County.

My first and only stop in Middletown Springs (for I had many a mile to go that afternoon) was at the crossroads of Routes 140 and 133. That's an intersection with presence, marked by an impressive sign that points you towards Canada or New York City, conjuring up images of Hobbitt-like journeys. I turned right and ventured north up the open road for thirty feet, then turned again and took a closer look at the lovely 19th century buildings that line two sides of the village green.

The tall-steepled church, the neo-classical hall (now the Historical Society, unfortunately closed that day) and the very ornamented large pink and cream wedding cake of a house all spoke of a prosperous past. Then as now, prosperity in a state with many mountains and rivers but few fertile valleys was all about tourism.

Like thirty other Vermont towns that discovered a source of mineral water (and the fouler smelling and viler tasting, the better) Middletown Springs became a destination for infirm flatlanders ready to pay well for remedies promised by the town's waters. ("For asthma, drink from Tap Number 2 and wish on Tap Number 3.") Doctors, patients and owners of mineral springs all testified to their curative powers.

By the early 1900's, sulpher's healing abilities were debunked, and the crowds vanished from the resorts built around noxious mineral springs. Still, a few tourists came and found that after a few days they generally felt better.

Maybe just being in rural Vermont, away from the stresses of city life, rocking gently on the Middletown Springs Hotel verandah, the North Brook babbling and mockingbirds singing, was enough by itself to alleviate dyspepsia and piles.

Barnard

2009-02-09T08:25:00.001-05:00

You here in Vermont have a priceless heritage-old houses that must not be torn down, and beauty that must not be defiled, roads that must not be cluttered with billboards and hot-dog stands. You are guardians of this priceless heritage...Charles Edward Crane quoting Sinclair Lewis's address to the Barnard rotary club

From Bethel I drove up and down North Road's hills to the center of Barnard, two graceful churches and a forthright general store. I perused these appreciatively from the Route 12 intersection, and then continued south down the Stage Road towards Woodstock.

I didn't know it at the time, but my dirt-covered Toyota had driven past the pristine 300 acres of Twin Farms, a luxury resort that must cater to that 10% of our population holding 70% of our national wealth, since accommodations range up to $3,000. a night. What tickles my fancy is that this property used to belong to leftist critic of the bourgeoisie (remember those novels "Babbitt", "Dodsworth", "Main Street", and "It Can't Happen Here"?) Sinclair Lewis, and his wife, anti-fascist journalist Dorothy Thompson--and you can sleep in "Red's Room" (Nobel Laureate Sinclair's bedroom) for $1,300. a night. The irony is gratis.

I'm glad I didn't find out about Twin Farms until later, as my populist rant would have distracted from enjoying the beauty of Stage Road in twilight.

Barnard facts and figures

Bethel

2009-01-25T23:55:00.000-05:00

"Diversity" has been Vermont's watchword, and it has saved the state from the worst of the depressions which more intensified industry has known. We have made almost everything in Vermont, from counterfeit money to clothes-pins and coffins...Charles Edward Crane

I've been driving past Bethel for years, turning left at this corner on my way from Interstate 89 to Rutland and points south. I always look up and appreciate this grain elevator planted so comfortably in the backyard of the town's main residential street--the scene reminds me of the WPA-style motifs of my father's paintings from his days as an artist and labor organizer during the Depression. Happily, rather than being an empty 1930's relic, this structure now houses the organic livestock grain supplier Green Mountain Feeds.

Last time I drove into Bethel, rather than take my usual turn south on Route 107 I headed up narrow Main Street to see what the town had to offer a visitor, especially in the way of food. The "Cockadoodle Pizza Cafe" beckoned me inside and didn't disappoint, offering a very respectable Greek slice (feta and spinach) served in an idiosyncratically pleasant interior, complete with wifi access and an interesting painting display on cheerful yellow walls (so much better than the depressing yellow arches I would have found in Rutland!)

Refreshed, I continued up Main Street in search of Bethel Mills Lumber, a very successful local enterprise with an interesting history. Founded during the Revolutionary War, Bethel Mills ground corn and sawed timber morning and night to meet the demands of new settlers. The business was operated by the same family for the next 100 years, then wiped out by the great flood of 1927, and rebuilt from the ground up as soon as the waters receded.

When the Great Depression hit, Bethel Mills struggled to keep its doors open. And then a twist of fate: a man with family in tow shows up looking for a job and is hired as a salesman; a week later the boss dies of a heart attack, and the new guy convinces the boss's widow to give him a chance managing the company rather than shut it down. She did, and together they rebuilt the business. And here's a typical Vermont happy ending to this entrepreneurial fairy tale: the new owner, unable to reach an agreement with the local power company over rates, decides to build his own hydroelectric plant on the river next to the mill. Though ridiculed by both his fellow townspeople and the utility, he perseveres and a few years later figures out how to produce enough electricity to both run the mill and sell back the extra juice to the power company--a satisfying arrangement that continues to this day.

Bethel facts and figures

Update on Ferrisburgh Update!

2009-01-22T22:43:00.001-05:00

The Friends of Ferrisburgh are urging artists and other concerned Vermonters to come to the Zoning Board Public Hearing, Wednesday, Feb 4th at 7:00 PM in the Ferrisburgh Town Hall and voice our opinion--no Mcdonalds/truck stop/parking lot needed on this beautiful historic stretch of Route 7!

Randolph

2009-01-16T14:15:00.000-05:00

We are now nearly a century away from the days of the first railroad boom in Vermont, and far, too, from the days when the Vermont poet wrote:
"Singing through the forests,
rattling over bridges,
Shooting under arches,
Rambling over ridges,
Whizzing through the mountains,
Buzzing o'er the vale,
Bless me! This is pleasant,
Riding on the rail." ...Charles Edward Crane

Randolph makes a good impression: comfortable neighborhoods and an active downtown that offers shopping, banking, eating and a library (what I think of as a total "park and carry basket for morning of errands and then books and coffee reward" experience). Randolph also feels like it's connected to the outside world, sitting in the path of major north-south roads (though the commerce once brought into town by Route 12 was drained by the nearby interstate) and an active Amtrak line. How exciting! The Vermonter runs between St. Albans and Washington, DC, with stops in Phillie and New York, and one member of my family makes that entire run frequently. Fortunately he's a stoic, because it's a very long trip over very old rails. Bring on the public works rail upgrade infrastructure program, President-elect Obama!

Randolph affords lovely views from quiet crossroads looking up the railroad tracks and down tree-lined residential streets. Its houses are detailed and varied, and I could easily spend a month standing on the sidewalk with my french easel, painting all those different facades, and the sunlight moving across Vistorian roofs and windows.

Many of these 19th century homes have carriage houses that sheltered the horse and wagon, or maybe provided a place to milk "Bossie" the family Jersey. These structures still serve a function protecting the family car, bikes and mower, and they also are a pleasure to look upon, elegant links to a living past.

Randolph facts and figures

Update on Ferrisburgh post 11/12/08

2009-01-12T21:33:00.011-05:00

Richard Kerschner of Ferrrisburg contacted me this weekend to ask permission to reproduce my painting of the Ferrisburgh Grange/Town Hall for use on a brochure. He's a member of the Friends of Ferrisburgh for Responsible Growth, recently formed to urge residents to join in protest against a proposed large truck stop/convenience store/McDonalds on Route 7 within sight of the stretch of road in my painting. He said the grange hall in my image "will stand in wonderful contrast to photos of the 106 foot long gas pump pavilion and 72 foot long diesel pump pavilion proposed as part of this project. "

What's the problem with building this "convenience store"? Richard's group thinks that it will compete unfairly with existing businesses, that it's out of scale and not in character with the rest of the town (ie., it's ugly), that the food offered is terrible for locals, and most importantly I think, that the building will open the door for further commercial strip development along this section of Route 7 (see Route 7 south of Burlington for possible future!)

They'll be a Planning Commission site plan review on Wednesday, Feb 18th at 7:00 PM at the Town Hall, if you'd like to add your opinion on whether this proposed development will benefit the town of Ferrisburgh and Route 7 . And if you'd like to help Richard in his efforts against this very sprawling "convenience" and fast food spot, email him at rskersch@comcast.net.

East Montpelier

2008-12-27T14:40:00.002-05:00

Every state is a state of mind. There are intangibles which make Vermont peculiarly such a state...Charles Edward Crane

For my Art of Action proposal I've been working on a series of studies that explore Vermont's landscape elements, features that I've identified as fundamental to our state's character: mountain, field, water, forest, farm, home, road and town. Vermonters care deeply about the working and natural landscape, and want to preserve our rural and small town environment (see surveys conducted by the "Council on the Future of Vermont") . So I've been thinking and reading about the components of this landscape, those elements that we live among and love, but also often take for granted. And I believe that we have to recognize the parts that make up the whole of Vermont before we can protect what we have here.

As I was driving today down Route 14 from East Montpelier towards home, I had a bit of an epiphany. I suddenly realized that the scene in front of me held a variety of landscape elements (road, home, mountain, field, forest, water). Each element conjured up associations and memories. This is a visually rich landscape.

That got me thinking about the opposite of this rich landscape, a "mono-element" landscape of housing development (only "home" element) or freeway (only "road" element). I can think of rural places I've been that are "mono-element": parts of Iowa that are only "field" element, or parts of Colorado that are only "mountain" element. For me, those places don't offer the complexity of features, that composition of emotional resonances that makes Vermont what it is: a unique "state of mind."

Peacham

2008-12-19T19:04:00.006-05:00

I once lived in a flat, newly-built suburban area in another state, where the effort to achieve variety had such a modern touch that it resulted largely in uniformity. It lacked wholly the atmosphere which I feel--and generally feel an affection for--in Vermont...Charles Edward Crane

In my last post I went on for a bit about "pretty" being an inadequate and overused word for describing the Vermont landscape, but I have to say that Peacham is pretty. A row of imposingly formal houses gives its Main Street a genteel air, and the town has historically been a vacation spot for "quality" folks in government and academia. Peacham was also the childhood home of the ungenteel anti-slavery crusader Thaddeus Stevens, on the U.S. Congress's all time honor roll for angry, radical, powerful and principled members.

Peacham sits up high, it's fancy houses poised on a long hill fronted by stone walls. In fact, the town is situated on the ridge that divides Vermont into two watersheds, one side draining into the Connecticut River and the other towards Lake Champlain.

The Bayley-Hazen Road (built during the Revolution to move Benedict Arnold's troops north for an assault on Canada, but more successfully utilized in getting settlers to the Northeast Kingdom) runs lengthwise through the village. I always feel like it's an historical adventure to steer down that narrow, rolling route from West Danville towards Groton.

Peacham facts and figures

Danville

2008-12-16T00:29:00.012-05:00

Little villages like Danville were less affected by these rococo raids and still preserve their architectural peace and calm, with their white frame houses, store, school and church fronting on the village common...Charles Edward Crane

I've been thinking about the question of "quaintness" in landscape. Charming, old-fashioned, picturesque: these description all fit Vermont, and also have a bit of a dismissive tone. To say a place, a painting (or even a girl) is "pretty" is damning with faint praise--where's the depth of character, the profundity, in "pretty"?

The question I've mostly been trying to answer is: Why does the Vermont landscape matter?

Driving into Danville at sunset on a winter night, I park my car by the church, and get out and walk around the green. It's very cold and quiet, and the traffic light hanging between two poles at the end of the street glows red, then green, and yellow, and red again. Nothing is happening here. I look at the shadow on the white church, the dirty snow, and the traffic light. What I see is more layered with time, more worn and hardened than "pretty". What I feel looking at Danville in twilight is more complicated than "happy", and that feeling is the reason this particular flatlander migrated north.

Twenty years ago I drove through Vermont for the first time. Coming up Route 7 past small towns, I saw creeks running through big back yards behind old houses, and knew I wanted to move here. It took another six years to figure out how to transplant myself and family to a place where we didn't have jobs and didn't know anybody, but I'd glimpsed my childhood out that car window, and had to come.

I grew up in a Victorian suburb of Washington DC, and in my years there saw the creek in my neighborhood culverted, the woods cleared, every available inch of grass assigned an owner. The close-by countryside where I'd sat in a pasture with my artist father and watched him paint a watercolor of an old barn was mile after mile of condo developments and shopping centers by the time I graduated from art school. That landscape had become the outer manifestation of suburban function: work, buy, eat, sleep, get up, drive, then do it all over again.

When I left Washington, some people there told me I'd take my unhappiness with me--that turned out not to be true. I'm not exactly sure about the reason, but I think it has something to do with why landscape matters, and what I feel looking at that traffic light in Danville.

Danville facts and figures

Walden

2008-12-10T13:08:00.016-05:00

The climate and soil may make the Vermonter hard-shelled, but only rarely is he a snapping turtle at heart. His character is more like that of a chambered nautilus, with recesses of beauty not easily seen but nevertheless there...Charles Edward Crane

Place names are redolent with romantic meaning for me, so I was looking forward to exploring Walden. But I drove through without stopping to nose around, as Walden (so far as I could tell at 30 mph) is more of a pronounced curve in Route 15, with a shuttered general store on one side and a frozen brook on the other, than a town with a populated center.

But that doesn't mean that Walden doesn't have an identity for the people who live there, or that my brief view of that bend in the road, brook and empty store didn't produce a memory in me that adds to the Thoreau image previously evoked in my mind's eye by the place name "Walden".

As I'm gathering images for my "Art of Action" proposal and future paintings, I keep returning to a central idea: landscape is powerful. Where we live and what we see everyday effects our character, emotions and health. I'm trying to inventory images that answer these questions: what places define Vermont, what parts of our landscape shape us, what exactly it is that we Vermonters want to preserve and need to protect? I'm finding that sometimes these elements of landscape are as intangible as bends in the road and views to blue mountains.

Walden facts and figures

Click here to see studies for my Art of Action proposal.

Cabot

2008-12-08T22:20:00.027-05:00

A long and amazing story could be told about Zarah Colburn, a boy born on a farm in Cabot, who astonished the world with his uncanny capacity for calculating numbers...He was taken abroad and exhibited in London and Paris, always accompanied by his father, who was just an ordinary farmer and utterly unable to account for the uncanny genius of his son...Charles Edward Crane

I took the left fork on Route 2 coming out of Marshfield through the Cabot flats (a short, narrow stretch of valley that despite being an especially cold microclimate hosts excellent greenhouse businesses, favorite haunts of mine during the gardening season). But today was the first day of hunting season, and a light snow blew across the road as I drove north towards the village.

Cabot is probably the most recognizable place name in Vermont. The cheese factory that's the source of its fame (located prominently on the main drag and painted a jaunty, Willy Wonkish red and white) looks surprisingly small given its prominence in the national food consciousness and importance as a local employer. Cabot Cheese began eighty years ago as one of many local creameries, co-op operations run by area farmers as a way to make a profitable product out of an abundance of milk that would otherwise quickly sour (this was before refrigerated bulk tanks forever changed the economies of dairy farming, and took Cabot and its farmers from a small community operation to absorption by the huge co-op Agrimark.)

The town of Cabot has a busy, compact center that includes its tiny multi-grade school, known for good academics and a thriving music program. Its campus just gained a performing arts center, built in true Vermont fashion: an idea cooked up by enthusiastic parents, a construction bond turned down by town vote, then the vision reborn with fundraising and volunteer effort.

It's a bit hard to believe today, driving past stately homes and a four-square church on the village green, that (according to my friend Martin Johnson, who knows about these things) Cabot was called "little Chicago" in the days of prohibition because of its gambling and moonshine liquor--or at least, that was the rumor in Martin"s hometown of Plainfield about the village of iniquity up the road.

Cabot facts and figures

Vergennes

2008-11-26T13:12:00.036-05:00

"...and the smallest city, Vergennes, boasts that it is the smallest city in the United States." Charles Edward Crane

What's the point of driving from town to town in my Toyota, juggling camera, map and sketchbook? I'm not an historian or economist gathering data, but I'm not just sightseeing either. I think this project is my way of trying to get a grasp on where I live (like realizing that there's much more to learn about a spouse ten years into a marriage--and I did move to Vermont because I fell in love with the place). My way of understanding is to look, draw, paint, gather images. Love, art and road trips are passionate processes with indefinite conclusions.

So, I slow down as I drive into Vergennes on Route 22A, and take in the small factory on the left (looks really old-- empty now or put to a new use?) and the first ornate downtown building on the right. I park, take my sketchbook and stroll down quiet Sunday Main Street.

The downtown of "the smallest city in the U.S." (only in Vermont would that be a bragging right) is in wonderful shape: ornate 19th century facades fastidiously painted in a spectrum of colors, and most buildings occupied with trades and services that make a town useful to locals. Even the laundromat is elegant.

And as often happens in Vermont, I sense ghosts here. This tiny city's heyday was in the 1800's, and today I'm looking at the beautifully maintained remnants of another century's energy, creativity and wealth.

Many towns have a "Mechanic Street", and it never disappoints. I find Vergenne's own version and follow it downhill a few blocks to Falls Park on Otter Creek. And as usual a bet made on rambling pays off, this time with a jaw-dropping view of three powerful waterfalls tumbling from the town past a jumble of old factories. Now I understand why Main Street is so fancy, the library so large, and homes so ornate in Vergennes!

Here's the phantom Vergennes that I feel still alive behind the empty factory facades: This first city in Vermont, established on Otter Creek in 1788, was a vital transportation hub serving stage coaches, river boats and then trains from up and down the East Coast. The falls provided energy for a self-sufficient economy: tanneries, grain mills, creameries and sawmills transformed and traded the bounty from miles of surrounding valley farms, and in return gave rural people the chance for stores-bought goods and cultural life.

I drive back up to Main Street and take a closer look at a pretty little Italianate building perched on a patch of grass at the top of the falls. According to the historical marker, it was built by the owner of the town's machine shop to house a pumping system he invented.

So here is a last ghost: the Vermonter who came off his father's farm with the skills and ambition to harness his city, state and the world itself to a new industrial dynamo. The Vermont town had always been enclosed in a strong circle of self-sufficiency, but it couldn't hold against that force. I'll have to keep driving and looking to try to figure out what vanished when that circle broke, and what remains.

Vergennes facts and figures

Ferrisburgh

2008-11-12T17:30:00.039-05:00

The old homestead in Ferrisburgh had served as one of the "underground railway" stations where fugitive slaves were harbored in secret whenever, in escaping, they turned up on their way to Canada...Charles Edward Crane

Ferrisburgh on first pass-through seems to be one of those quick "drive-by" towns. But like the "fly-over" parts of our country, on closer and slower inspection this is a place with a thousand stories. Take, for example, what I learned about the large white building with the cupola on busy Route 7.

A quick glance on your left as you drive by wouldn't tell you much, but this typical New England structure has been through more dramatic shifts of the sacred and secular than the Pantheon in Paris: for seventy years a church, then for six more decades a Grange Hall (a somewhat radical function, as the Grange was a powerful national organization in the 1800's that promoted farmers' social and economic interests). As agriculture waned in more recent years, the building once again changed roles. On the day in 2004 that the municipal committee signed a contract to convert the venerable Grange Hall to Town Hall, an arsonist torched it to the ground. Three years later Ferrisburgh's central edifice rose again, a replica of the original 1800's Congregational Church rebuilt right down to the windowsill trim (though minus the steeple) by a town devoted to its own history.

This spring I need to drive back down Route 7 to Ferrisburgh and visit Rokeby Museum, once the home of the remarkable Robinson family, and like the town hall a place haunted by political and social history. The four generations of Robinsons were skilled millers and farmers, famous authors (Rowland Robinson's novels about the imaginary hill town of "Danvis" made him the Faulkner of Vermont), devoted naturalists and conservationists, Quaker abolitionists who offered Rokeby as a refuge to slaves fleeing north on the Underground Railway, and last but not least, innovative artists (take a look at Rachel Robinson's beautiful postcard prints of New York City, which were the first of their kind.) What is it about New England that fosters whole families of unique individuals?

I also didn't get to take a look at the lake section of Ferrisburgh, although I may have accidentally driven through it on my way to Vergennes. The geography gets a bit confused here as the town of Ferrisburgh spreads out to "the hollow" up north and then runs in fits and starts down Route 7 to Basin Harbor Resort. (Like the nearby specialty food company Dakin Farms, the Resort was founded in the 1800's by a local farm family trying to make some much-needed cash offering a slice of Vermont to flatlander tourists.) Button Bay, Bay State Park, and Little Otter Creek are low-cost recreational alternatives for water-loving Ferrisburghers. And there's always horseback riding on back roads for fun.

Ferrisburgh facts and figures

Middlebury

2008-11-11T19:57:00.029-05:00

William Hazlitt Upson dwells in Middlebury. Though professedly a sufferer from ergophobia, Mr. Upson works. He has turned out thirty-seven stories about Alexander Botts, super-salesman of Earthworm tractors...Charles Edward Crane

I'm attracted like a magnet to the more downscale parts of a town, the backstreets lined with faded factories, moldering mills and dusty hardware stores, worn remnants of past decades (or even past centuries). So instead of touring the genteel campus of Middlebury College, I wandered down to Otter Creek to check out what had become of the water-powered industrial buildings of yesteryear.

I found the Vermont State Frog Hollow Craft Center settled in the shell of a old mill, and chatted with some enterprising artists with homes, studios and galleries in downtown buildings. I learned from them that one long brick row on Main Street is named for 19th century philanthropist and art collector Philip Battell. He came from a prominent family of politicians and wealthy eccentrics--his brother Joseph is credited with preserving hundreds of acres of forest (including Camel's Hump) and the Morgan horse breed. One of a long line of idiosyncratic Vermont authors, Joseph wrote the novel "Ellen--or the Whisperings of an Old Pine", a dialogue between a sixteen year-old girl and a wise tree about such matters as the wave theory of sound propagation. The skiable Mt. Ellen at Sugarbush is that imaginary character's namesake.

I strolled down to the park, where this gazebo brought back memories of a summer visit to Vermont fifteen years ago when our family wandered into an evening community concert held here on the green. The small scale of the entertainment, the setting and the town itself felt comfortable and welcoming. (Our vague dream of a permanent family move from Washington, DC to Vermont evolved into a definite plan during this short vacation.)

Looking from the bridge on Merchant's Row towards the old industrial area on Otter Creek, I'm thinking what I've thought so often in Vermont towns: the "selling and buying" areas are intact, but the "making" sections are mostly gone. Some of the buildings that created energy and goods for the community are still standing but their original functions have long vanished. Like so many towns diminished by the disappearance of the industries that drove their creation and growth, Middlebury is now looking to the arts for a new economic engine. Artists, after all, are still in the business of making things.

Middlebury facts and figures

Bristol

2008-11-08T09:12:00.021-05:00

An alternate, but nearly all-gravel route from Middlebury to Burlington is by way of the charming Bristol village, past the Lord's Prayer cut on a rock...Charles Edward Crane

I took a sharp right at Route 17 and headed up Stark Mountain, a winding, ear-popping climb past the Appalachian Trail to the summit's microwave tower at Buels Gore (getting out of the car there for a chilly look at the valley far below) and then a fast roll down the back side of Sugarbush into the town of Bristol.

Bristol feels to me like a humble, hidden Green Mountain Shangri-La tucked away at the end of a circuitous climbing path. The downtown rewards the adventurer willing to bypass the speed of the valley roads with an excellent breakfast (herb and spinach egg scramble) at Snap's Restaurant, and some interesting poking around in Main Street shops (though oddball Folkhearts with it's red facade is alas no longer there.)

Shopping in a small town is a pleasure rather than a chore: park your car, grab your market bag, and stroll from store to library to farmer's market, exchanging greetings with neighbors along the way. The news and opinions in a five minute conversation on a town street are like lines moving through a painting, connecting part to part and creating a strong whole.

And there's a place on Main Street in Bristol to sit in the sun and gossip, complain, analyze and laugh with friends on a warm autumn afternoon.

Bristol facts and figures

Moretown

2008-11-06T16:56:00.029-05:00

Vermont is so streamlined and beponded that it has (if you count both banks of every stream) uncountable miles of shore line. The tourist in Vermont passes by and over brooks and rivers at every turn...Charles Edward Crane

My first road trip begins on a sunny October day with an amble south down Route 100B. It's easy to miss Moretown, the center of which on first viewing is just a stately town hall and a pronounced bend in the road.

But on closer inspection (afforded by a quick turn about and a second drive back around the bend) the village of Moretown reveals an intimate charm: two dignified churches, a clapboard library, the general store, and a very charming gazebo.

The main fact of Moretown is the narrow, boulder-strewn Mad River, seen as just a glimpse from the car as it crisscrosses the highway but central to the development and history of the town. During the 1800's the Mad River provided the productive energy for lumber and grist mills, power plants and creameries. Then one rainy November day in 1927 the river flooded and brought to Moretown and the rest of the valley sudden death and destruction.

But today the Mad River is placid, and I just want to stop the car and climb a big rock on the bank, and take a long look into quiet water.

Moretown Facts and figures

Marshfield

2008-10-31T14:34:00.031-04:00

"The circus-barking title of the book, 'Let Me Show You Vermont', was born in a moment of bombast...The one encouragement to effort is the possibility that I may reflect Vermont, in some of its phases, differently and more fully than has been done before." Charles Edward Crane

Merv Spooner's barbershop is on the left side of Creamery Street just before the long roll down into Marshfield Village. If you stop in on a Saturday morning you can still get a haircut--"flat top specialist"--and some good conversation for five dollars. Ask Merv and he'll tell you about the mysterious theft of his barber pole a few years back (fortunately replaced with the help of funds raised by a local radio station's community phone-a-thon.)

I live on a nearby hill in Marshfield, and therefore can narrate more stories about this place than any of the other 250 towns in this state. I know, for instance, that most activity in Marshfield takes place not in the tiny town center, but in the old and new houses that dot the dirt roads of surrounding hills and valleys.

But I like the town centers, even if they are not much more than a steepled church and a cluster of aged homes. In Marshfield we also have a post office, Derek's Quick Stop and a hunting store, all merged together in a Vermont version of a 19th century clapboard mini-strip mall.

Marshfield spreads up to Hollister Hill (where I live) and down to the Winooski River from this nexus on Route 2, the historic east-west highway that runs from Washington State to Maine. I love a road with that kind of possibility.

Marshfield facts and figures

The Art of Action

2008-10-30T22:04:00.009-04:00

I'm delighted to be a finalist in the "Art of Action: Shaping Vermont's Future through Art", a unique project that will commission ten visual artists to create bodies of work that address the present condition and future possibilities of Vermont. This ambitious idea is the joint vision of the Vermont Arts Council and native Vermonter Lyman Orton, an entrepreneur and philanthropist who takes an intense interest in his home state.

Last week I attended an orientation session where I had the pleasure of meeting the other nineteen finalists and hearing presentations by the project's organizers. I left the meeting inspired by their confidence in our ability as visual artists to make a real contribution towards defining the best possible future for our wonderful state.

I'll be working on my "Art of Action" proposal over the next two months, planning a series of paintings that incorporate both my ideas and those of fellow Vermonters. (The ten commissioned artists will be chosen after presentations of their proposals in January.)

The "Art of Action" project has given me a great reason to get started conducting my own individual visual survey of the "state of Vermont" from Lake Champlain to the Connecticut River and from Massachusetts to the Canadian border. I've been wanting to explore every byway and corner of this place since I moved up here over a decade ago, and now's the time to grab atlas and coffee thermus and head out the door. (I may even try for membership in the "251 Club", an elite group of road warriers who have visited every town in the state.)

My sketchbook and I will be driving many miles of back roads over the coming months, and I hope you'll join us by subscribing to this blog! Just click on "posts" below and choose "bloglines", and you'll be along for each new jaunt on my Vermont journey.