(HOST) The "Art of Action," an art show that looks at the future of Vermont is now showing in Brattleboro and will travel throughout Vermont in the coming year. Commentator Tom Slayton saw the show recently and has these comments.
(SLAYTON) About a year ago, businessman and philanthropist Lyman Orton told Alex Aldrich, the director of the Vermont Council on the Arts, that he was tired of collecting art about Vermont’s past. "I want to collect art about Vermont’s future," Orton said. He was willing to back this up with his own money.
The resulting art show is now touring Vermont. It’s called "The Art of Action," and in it ten artists take a look – sometimes a hard look – at the future of this state.
Why artists? Well, Orton said that artists have a different way of looking at things – and their special kind of vision can help Vermont move into the 21st century in a way that helps and doesn’t hurt the state. The Weston entrepreneur, who with his sons owns the Vermont Country Store, has long had an interest in seeing Vermont develop in a healthy way.
"My interest and vision in this thing was to engage Vermonters through art," he said recently.
The works in the resulting show range from Gail Boyajian’s idealized visions of small towns and pastoral scenes to Philip Godenschwager’s plastic and acrylic bas-relief sculptures that depict a Vermont that has been turned into a tawdry theme park.
Most of the artists express their love of Vermont – and their fear that the Vermont of the future might be ruined by development – quite directly.
Susan Abbott of Marshfield, for example, takes elements of the Vermont that we all are familiar with – farms, mountains, waterscapes, and villages – and paints realistic scenes of each that epitomize the goodness of what we have now, and one way that goodness could be compromised and lost. One series offers views of roads on a human scale, winding through the landscape, with bicycles and tractors sharing the roadways. Another depicts a huge interstate complex that obliterates the surrounding countryside and allows automobiles to completely dominate the scene.
Her vision of the ideal Vermont looks a lot like the Vermont that exists today. "After all," she says, "who wants to see what they love destroyed?"
Phillip Godenschwager of Randolph looks at the negative possibilities facing us. His bas relief, "The Disneyfication of Vermont," satirizes one possible future – in which Vermont becomes a glorified theme park with fine dining on every corner, carnival rides on tractors, and a "Shoot the Moose" concession. This, of course, is the true Vermonters’ nightmare.
A more subtle vision is expressed in the works of Curtis Hale of St. Johnsbury. His striking paintings of truss bridges and rail junctions quietly suggest that we expand our view of beauty to include the world of real work. Bridges, after all, connect us to one another.
Orton hopes these artworks will spark a dialog among Vermonters about the future of this state we all love. The 1930s were a time of idealism and change, he notes; so were the 1960s.
"Now it’s time for another renaissance," he says.
Will "The Art of Action" spark that Renaissance? Here?
I, for one, certainly hope so.