Open studios & craft fairs
Antiques, crafts, chainsaw carving, furniture, woodworking — and apple pies!
Workshops & Residencies
Learn to build a stone wall, write a haiku, get into jazz, paint portraits, create stained glass — and that’s just to whet your appetite.
Rock-solid accolades
Rock-solid accolades Stone house wins top honor from design site Terrigenous Landscape Architecture of Chester, owned by Scott Wunderle, is winner of the Best of Houzz Community Design award for 2013. The firm won for its design of a local outbuilding: a coop made from local stone and extruded glass rods. Wunderle says he undertook the work as a private challenge and was inspired by Chester’s Stone Village, listed in the National...
A group effort
Chester looks to promote itself as an ‘arts destination’ Arts- and culture-related organizations and businesses in Chester have strong allies in several of their neighbors who’ve banded together to promote the town as a top arts and culture draw. ArtUp!, a collaborative launched here in the fall of 2012, is working toward leveraging Chester’s strengths as a top arts destination, and giving Brattleboro and Burlington a...
Beer Observed: What pairs well with beer?: Don’t let the wine lovers have all the fun this summer — find a great brew to go with that special meal
Beer Observed: What pairs well with beer? Don’t let the wine lovers have all the fun this summer — find a great brew to go with that special meal By Marty Rambsberg The right wine with the right food makes the meal. But what pairs well with beer? Sure, beer buddies up with popcorn, pretzels, and pizza, but what of things that don’t start with “p”? Salad, say, or sole meunière, or a nice grilled salmon? Craft...
Creative careers: Tucked in the hills of Southern Vermont, Brattleboro-West Arts members make beautiful art and live rich lives
Creative careers: Tucked in the hills of Southern Vermont, Brattleboro-West Arts members make beautiful art and live rich lives By Chris Lann West Brattleboro basket maker Jackie Abrams’ studio shelves are filled with sculptural woven baskets. The body of her own creative work sits side by side with pieces that exemplify the traditional techniques she teaches. Walls and doors are covered with photos of people she’s met and taught...
Raising a ruckus in Southern Vermont
Raising a ruckus in Southern Vermont A show celebrating major themes of influental artist Red Grooms over 60 years — his first show ever in Vermont, and his first in New England in 16 years — opens in Brattleboro this summer By Arlene Distler And now, under the big top, in the center ring, Red Grooms, ringmaster of the human comedy, brings you jugglers, wild animals, acrobats, clowns, and trapeze artists; whole chunks of Manhattan,...
Live performance as community
Nurturing the Arts: Liisa Kissel, Music: Live performance as community By Allison Teague It took the Grafton Music Festival only three years to rise to the status of go-to music festival, held in tandem with the annual visit of the Vermont Symphony Orchestra & Fireworks, itself a Grafton staple of the past 23 years. Grafton resident Liisa Kissel, president of Grafton Music Festival, Inc., serves with a board of three to get the...
Tony Conner, Visual Art
By Allison Teague Like many who take up the arts following a first career, Tony Conner needed only the right moment to act. When downsizing loomed in 2003, this former AT&T account executive leaped at the chance to paint full-time. He’s glad he did. But painting the rural landscapes of Vermont and New England, and tackling commercial work, is not all Conner, now a Bennington-based watercolorist and teacher, does — and many,...
Behind the bylines
Summer 2013 issue: Behind the bylines In putting together this issue, the theme of connections came into focus in so many ways — connections among people and communities, connections among artists engaging in a common medium, connections between farmers and the rugged terrain of Southern Vermont. “A sense of place is vital to community, say the founders of the West River Community Project in West Townshend,” reports Thelma O’Brien , a...
Nurturing the Arts: Three who bring the arts to life in Southern Vermont
Nurturing artists and the arts just comes naturally to Southern Vermonters. Dorset Theatre Festival Artistic Director Dina Janis is turning a local legend into a world-class performance venue on par with anything you’ll find in the Berkshires. In Grafton, Liisa Kissel continues crafting a go-to music festival that leverages the popular VSO concerts taking place every Fourth of July weekend in this picturesque town of 500. In...
A country store and so much more
A country store and so much more West Townshend builds community by embracing multiple uses — including arts and music — for a revitalized general store The West River Community Project is dedicated to preserving and promoting the West River heritage in order to sustain a healthy future full of music, the arts, and local agriculture. It’s a work very happily in progress. The West Townshend Country Store, at 6573 Route 30, is up and...
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Southern Vermont Arts & Living chronicles the innovative culture and sophisticated country lifestyle of Southern Vermont.
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