Under the auspices of their non-profit organization, the Vermont Institute of Contemporary Arts (VTiCA), Abby Raeder and Robert Sarly have bought and have begun renovating the American Legion building in Chester.
In conjunction with those efforts, they have started work on promoting an east-west day tour that will connect galleries, artists, and their works with more people who can appreciate art outside of the mainstream.
Their goal: creating visibility and recognition for contemporary artists, who must struggle even harder than artists who work in more realistic genres.
At a recent artists' “town meeting” in Bellows Falls, Sarly introduced what he hopes will be a fun and promising way for artists and galleries to attract more collectors and patrons to the region from within a day's drive: a “Vermont State of the Arts Trail” of galleries and museums exhibiting American and Vermont contemporary art, stretching from Bellows Falls and Grafton on the east side, to Salem and Cambridge, N.Y. on the west side, with approximately 40 destinations, or “links on a chain,” in between.
Sarly noted that, no matter where people stay along the art tour, they can enjoy day excursions at any number of participating galleries.
He described the trail as “an easy day's drive” from the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Arts (Mass MoCA) in North Adams, Mass., which already attracts collectors and patrons.
“We've spoken to them, and they are enthusiastic about the idea, and sending people up here,” Sarly said.
Alex Aldrich, executive director of the Vermont Arts Council, is enthusiastic about the arts trail idea.
The Vermont Institute of Contemporary Arts' new home will include a gallery space with room for performing artists, two apartments with studios, and eventually a performing arts barn.
Raeder said that he and Sarly both realized that there “are many contemporary [and abstract] artists who quietly live and work in Vermont, and have no place to exhibit and sell their work. We want to provide that.”
They hope to offer teaching residencies where the artists can live upstairs and teach downstairs. They also envision big-name artists wanting to come. “Vermont is very attractive to artists,” Raeder said.
Education, appreciation required
Scott J. Morgan of Chester has been interested in the project since he met Raeder and Sarly. He has offered his help as an unofficial consultant in such areas as lighting for the gallery.
“I think they wanted an artist's perspective,” he said.
Morgan is an abstract contemporary art painter who, until recently, has been working out of a shared studio space in Bellows Falls, but will be opening his own gallery, WaterMusicArt Gallery & Studio, on Memorial Day weekend, at 244 Main St.
Morgan understands well the uphill slope a contemporary artist faces not just in Vermont, but in general.
He has watched people walk through a gallery opening of his work. “You can tell the people who get it and those who don't,” Morgan said. “Most people walk through quickly without stopping to really look at a particular painting.”
Wolf Kahn, whose large color field landscape paintings have been inspired by summers in Brattleboro, sells his work in New York City.
“In the 40 years I've lived there, I've given away a lot of paintings, and sold three to Vermonters,” he said of the climate for contemporary art in the state.
Both Morgan and Kahn noted separately, however, that lack of appreciation is not limited solely to Vermont. People in general do not understand contemporary art.
Kahn's paintings are loosely representational with recognizable elements found in a rural landscape, most of the time. Some of his pastels and oils, however, stretch into the abstract, becoming pure fields of color.
“You have to have an education and be aware of the tradition of abstraction,” Kahn said, to like and understand contemporary or abstract art.
Another member of the unofficial team Raeder and Sarly have assembled, Theresa C. Findeisen, the architect for the renovation of the VTiCA building, has a background in fine arts as a master silk frame printer; she also creates etchings and monotypes.
Findeisen's website displays several abstract paintings, as well as representational drawings that tend to be more architectural in their influence. Like Kahn, she emphasizes that education creates an understanding of contemporary art.
What is contemporary art?
“I'm painting my emotions when I paint,” Findeisen said. “I'm going deep, deep, deep to access that.”
She is not concentrating on getting perspective, or a roofline, or the crook of a cow's tail just right. “People have to understand that [when looking at contemporary art]. I'm not painting what I see. I'm painting how I feel about what I see.”
Findeisen stresses, however, “I have classical training [in art] as do all the great abstract painters [like Kahn, Jackson Pollock, Helen Frankenthaler, and Picasso]. They aren't just plopping paint on the canvas. You have to be willing to look deeper.”
Findeisen said that knowing these elements of contemporary art is key to understanding and liking it. This fact explains why, for now, contemporary art is not mainstream for collectors or patrons of art.
“[Abstract art] has a much shorter tradition than representational painting,” Kahn notes. “People are living in a very literal world. People want to put a name to things.”
Kahn's understanding comes from an educated study of the history of abstraction and the philosophical underpinnings of a movement that began in the 50s.
At the Vermont Arts Council, Aldrich used a personal anecdote to illustrate the approach VTiCA is likely to need, in today's climate of instant technology and dwindling arts-education funding, to educate the public in contemporary art in the long run.
“My son started watching hip-hop videos on YouTube when he was 8 years old,” Aldrich said. “So we got him a hip-hop teacher, and he got good - really good - and he loved it.
“Then one day, his teacher told him that if he wanted to get even better, he would need to take ballet to get the fundamentals of body mechanics and how to move his body.”
Aldrich laughed at the incongruity.
“If we had told him that when he started wanting to learn hip-hop, he would never have started. Now, at 15, he's taking ballet lessons and he really gets it.”
And so, Aldrich explained, educating people about contemporary and abstract art probably needs to take place through art that a person can respond to and understand.
“I bought a painting years and years ago from my aunt who was a painter, for $1,000,” he said. “I made monthly payments for two years and accompanied each payment with a note saying how much I loved and appreciated the work.”
That was the first painting in Aldrich's collection.
“I've gone on to collect much better art, and more sophisticated art,” he added. “And I know now that painting wasn't all that good - my aunt went on to paint better and differently - but that painting was the opening to my understanding of art, and what I like, and why. My tastes grew.”
Making a living
Aldrich agreed that Vermont's contemporary and abstract artists do not have a real venue to show their work and that VTiCA will fill a niche. But funding the nonprofit and keeping the new venue open will be the struggle.
Findeisen noted the conundrum of a lack of “value” of contemporary art by the public. “To keep a gallery open, you have to have artwork that sells,” she said.
As Kahn notes, an abstract painter must achieve a high level of visibility to make a living off his or her work, and that is true for only a handful of contemporary or abstract artists.
“Practicing abstract art as a painter, you're consigning your life to poverty,” Kahn said.
Morgan and Aldrich made the connection to money even more directly, saying that a contemporary art gallery needs a source of funding that is not tied to art sales.
According to Kahn, “Whoever is behind it needs to be okay with no income.”
Arts and the state and local economies
However, Aldrich said, VTiCA could not be starting at a better time in Vermont.
“We are very lucky in this state to have legislators who understand that cutting arts support is not the way to go. It's a quality of life issue,” he noted. “I overheard two of our senators having a budgetary discussion, and one of them said to the other that he didn't want to live in a state that didn't support the arts.”
Aldrich noted that the economic downturn has forced Vermont to examine what it considers important.
“So far, we are very lucky,” he observed. “Compared to our neighbor, New Hampshire, which has just got its arts council completely cut, our governor just recommended level funding our [Vermont Arts Council] budget.
“We like level funding. It means we don't have to change anything.”
Aldrich said that starting a business like VTiCA right now could very well be the perfect time.
The Vermont Department of Tourism and Marketing is about to change how the agency markets the arts in the state, Aldrich said. “Very quickly, you're going to see a whole new approach to getting people to see this state as an arts state.”
He noted that the arts sector has never been marketed and promoted here before.
“We [locals] see it as an arts state, but the state has never invested any money in getting the word out,” Aldrich said. “This will be the first time ever.”
The National Governor's Association released a study, “Arts and Economy, Using Arts and Culture to Stimulate Economic Development,” and in a press release in 2005, noted that “the creative industry includes thousands of businesses and nonprofit organizations and employs about 4.5 percent of the state's workforce.”
Aldrich explains further what economic impact the arts have on Vermont, referring to a 2009 analysis by Burlington consultant and state auditor candidate Doug Hoffer – an analysis carried out at the request of Melinda Moulton, a developer who was serving on the Vermont Arts Council at the time.
“State and local taxes netted $19,438,480 [which includes income, sales, property, excise and other taxes],” in 2008, according to the Main Street Landing study, Aldrich said.
In contrast, “The state appropriation for the arts amounts to just under $3 million,” Aldrich explained. “That's an almost 700 percent return on their investment.”
By anyone's standards, “that's a good deal,” he said.
To emphasize the point further, Aldrich used New York City's economic cornerstone for over 100 years, Broadway, as “the single biggest economic generator in the history of the country.”
Aldrich also pointed out that what brings artists to Vermont is the same thing that attracts many other people to Vermont: “quality of life.”
“We're authentic,” he added. “It's not a charade. Visitors get a glimpse at a lifestyle people in this state have made an investment in.”
And the arts - music, performance arts, visual arts, and crafts - can be integrated into the Vermont lifestyle by anyone who visits.
“We've promoted tourism and our specialty cheeses. Finally, we are going to invest in marketing and promoting the arts,” Aldrich said enthusiastically.
State of the Arts trail
The arts trail that links 15 towns and villages, from the Vermont towns of Bellows Falls, Springfield, Rutland, and Manchester to the New York towns of Salem and Cambridge, lists more than 40 galleries and art centers that carry contemporary art.
Robert McBride, founder and director of the Rockingham Arts and Museum in Bellows Falls, the easternmost point on the trail map, called the trail an example of a regional link that “connects more communities together with a theme of the arts.”
Aldrich noted the state's support of regional byways, like the Connecticut River Byway, more than 500 miles of state roads flanking the river in Vermont and New Hampshire.
McBride described the byway as a “great example” of how communities can ”hook into a larger 'structure' that tells a bigger story to which all the participants can contribute.”
“The regional story is always a stronger story [and] brings more partners together,” McBride added.
Raeder, Sarly, and Aldrich agree that if the arts trail is marketed and promoted properly, it will attract visitors who will buy art. Those same people will stay overnight at inns, bed and breakfasts, and hotels; they will also eat in restaurants and buy gas along the way.
The overall multiplier effect is that communities along the arts trail should benefit from the effort, they said.
“If they build the different parts up slowly, successfully, they will succeed,” Aldrich said.
Aldrich added that the Vermont State of the Arts trail could follow the model of successful music festivals. “They started out small. Over 10 years, though, they became quite successful.”
Raeder and Sarly have mapped out their planning phases on their Facebook page.
“Phase 1 locates existing galleries in the mid-state, east-west axis between Salem, New York, and Bellow Falls, VT,” they wrote. “This region is home to many outstanding galleries exhibiting contemporary art works.”
The second phase next year will focus on identifying individual artists and their respective studios. “Our intent is to partner with the existing Open Studio Tours once or twice per year,” they said.
They plan for their new gallery to have a “soft” opening in August, with the official opening “sometime later in the fall.”
“They've got a good perspective and a realistic idea of goals, and [seem to be] building realistically over time,” Aldrich said. “It can be done, and has been done [in music].”
“I thank my stars that [we] live in Vermont where values are shared and non-partisan,” Aldrich added. “I think there's a great deal of promise in what they plan.”