Marshfield

"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

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.