In the 1960’s the Arts and Crafts Council of America began an annual National Craft Fair and held it in Vermont, during a period when arts and crafts flourished. The Council continues to sponsor juried art festivals each year, and there are Craft Fairs throughout the country on smaller scales. But in Vermont, artisans and craftspeople are highly honored and nurtured, and the entire state is a wonderful place to spend time looking for special handmade items such as furniture, fabrics, blown glass, jewelry, ceramics, paintings, and many more creations. There are numerous craft fairs and workshops, studios, shops, and galleries in which to browse, take classes, and purchase items you’ll treasure forever. In Windsor, the birthplace of Vermont, you’ll find the non-profit, state designated, juried craft center, Vermont State Craft Center (802 674 6729). Here exhibited and for sale are some of the finest works from artists and artisans all over the state. While here you can also enjoy photographing the Cornish-Windsor Covered Bridge, the longest in the United States.
In May Vermont Craft Council hosts a state-wide Open Studio week-end during which artists and crafts people of all media invite the public to come into shops and studios, galleries and historic places to watch them work in their special crafts. The Woodstock-Quichee area in the Southeast part of the state is an especially good place for your art-seeking venture. This resort area is centrally located in New England, just 10 minutes by car from Interstate 89 (Boston to Burlington, or from Interstate 91 from Hartfort, CT. Flights from New York City and Boston arrive daily at the Lebanon (New Hampshire) Airport, just 20 minutes away. AmTrak between Washington, D.C. (via NYC) and Montreal, Canada also stops daily at White River Junction (800 295 5451), at the confluence of the White and the Connecticut Rivers, central to the artisan area and just a few miles from Woodstock (888 496 6378) or Quichee.
We enjoyed seeing basket-making by some of the best basket-makers at the Calvin Coolidge birthplace, where Irene Ames demonstrated weaving traditional designs from split black ash, making the process look so easy! She explained the different traditional uses for various sizes and shapes of baskets, including the feather basket, a half-peck, and a peck. She creates her baskets with a unique star pattern woven into the center bottom of each, even in her tiniest doll-house baskets.
Another basketry artist, Donna Nazarenko of Turbridge, who teaches around the United States, demonstrated various other patterns and styles of baskets from Nantucket and Shaker areas. We were especially taken with her birchbark and pine needle baskets, an almost lost craft now seeking to be saved. Many other basket makers in Vermont have revived the fading art and create beautiful baskets, both collectable and utilitarian. Throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries settlers here had Merino sheep farms, and wool was the main industry. The internationally known Ibex special woolen sport garments are made in Woodstock today. Also a few small flocks are kept for the cottage wool industry. Several local artisans specialize in hand knits and felted items from the local wool, and you can watch sheep shearing in the spring. We visited All’s Wool That Ends Wool where Dianne Kelley Stott, who escaped a New York City executive job in the garment industry to follow her passion here, creates unique special-order products, which range from fulled (felted) garments to teddy bears. Her 48 cross-bred sheep are her pets as well as her friends. She crossed cordel sheep, known for the softness of their wool, with romney sheep, which have shiney wool, to produce soft wool with a sheen that is unavailable commercially. She enjoys all aspects of her craft and explained sheering, washing, picking, carding, dying, spinning, weaving, shrinking, and fulling processes. She specializes in fulled items, which are popularly called felted. “There is something very primal about the fulling process,” which is the oldest fiber process of all. She also invented a special hand processing machine for needle felting dry wool, the “Fabulous Felt-o-Matic.”
Many ceramicists choose to live and work in Vermont. Perhaps one of the most widely acclaimed is Miranda Thomas, whose masterpieces were selected by President Clinton as Gifts of State for a Middle Eastern trip and also as his gift to the Pope during his visit to St. Louis, MO. Some of her exquisite and unique pieces feature animals embossed and delicately gilded or colored in the glazing process. Her distinctive work is easily recognized the world over for her bold yet subtle embellishments and the lovely perfection of shapes, from huge one-of-a-kind display pieces to table setting patterns. She and her husband, Charlie Shakleton, who is famous for his satin-fine hand-built, one-of-a-kind furniture, share
As a child Shakleton always loved to make things, but his father admonished that he had to make money. After many years of experimenting with what he could make with his hands and also make his livlihood, he settled on furniture making and mastered the craft as an artform which few in the world can match. He is not a loner and views furniture making as a social activity, mentoring many apprentices through the two decades he has been in business. But with each item he stresses that it should be unique not only in design but also in its specialness, like a treasure a child would lovingly create for his grandmother. Shakleton knows that the love and care he and his crafts people devote to each piece, which one person makes from start to finish, is felt throughout the life of the piece and can be recognized by anyone who touches it. Each item must be made from a place within the artisan’s heart that comes through, then he has no fear that anyone could copy it. Each piece is ” the real thing,” which the artist himself wants and loves, not just something made to sell. He uses native American hardwoods from certified forests, which practice stewardship of resources. His craftsmanship in each piece of furniture is exquisite, satiny smooth, and unique in design, not copies or reproductions. Each piece is a special order and requires about seven months before the order is filled.
Woodstock is the birthplace of Conservation and was the home of the first man to write about about it, Frederick Marsh, who authored Man and Nature in the mid 19th century. Today you can enjoy the forests, planted, conserved, preserved,for usefulness and esthetic beauty and for recreation along its many trails for naturing, hiking, biking, horseback, and winter sports. In September the area features its wood crafters in the Woodstock/Quechee area with Vermont Fine Furniture and Woodworking Festival and a Forest Festival in the National Park Forest.
A world renowned hand-blown glass artist and potter, Simon Pearce, who moved many years ago from Ireland, established his studio and factory in The Mill at Quechee, just off Highway 89 at Windsor. His distinctive designs, once only made by him alone, are now hand-made but using his molds to produce conformity. We were fascinated to watch some of the glass blowers at work in front of the glory hole as they explained the ancient process. We also enjoyed watching some of the potters do magic with mud on their whirling wheels. The showroom features not only the Pearce designs of timeless elegance but also utilizes specially chosen furniture pieces and fiber art to display table settings and accent pieces as if in homes. Simon also has his own line of dining flatware. Before you purchase these works of art, you can try them out to see how they look and feel at a delectable meal in the Simon Pearce Restaurant (802 295 1470.) This is a not-to-miss dining experience for lunch or dinner. You’ll love looking out over the spectacular rushing water falls and the original 1836 covered bridge at this prime location in the bend of the Ottauquechee River.
Visual artists abound in Vermont, and galleries and shops feature numerous local works for display and for sale. We were fortunate to have one of the local artists leading our arts tour, Annette Compton, whose media and styles are varied and she teaches art locally. She is illustrator and artist of two books, God’s Paintbrush and Drawing From Your Minid, Painting From Your Heart. Her paintings are frequently on display for sale in many galleries including the popular Mountain Creamery Restaurant in Woodstock, where you’ll devour the most delicious burgers from the owner’s own cattle and the most incredible churned ice cream you ever tasted. Be sure to try the maple vanilla flavor from local sugar maple trees. Annette led us to many galleries, of which perhaps the most novel location was Pegasus Gallery, which is in a quaint building beside a Mobil Gas Station near White River Junction… a perfect rest stop to shop for your special Vermont artworks. Owner Sheryl Trainor features many different artists in her regular gallery shows.
Also at White River Junction don’t miss a most unusual artist’s shop, Lampscapes by Ken Blaisdell. A former engineer, he created unique lamp designs and hand paints lampshades in different media and always one-of-a-kind pictures. It is a most fascinating studio, and watching him paint a shade is like watching a magician! A few blocks away Matt Busey has recreated one of the town’s landmarks, the TipTop Bakery building, performing architectural wonders to transform it into excellent art studio and gallery space.. You’ll find many kinds of visual arts from fiber to print-making and also an excellent Cafe here with wholesome and tasty selections fresh daily. While in this little village check the schedule for historic Brigg’s Opera House, which features nine plays during each of four seasons with actors from New York! Just a few blocks away in a park beside the river you’ll be inspired by the Canadian geese sculptures by Jeffrey Sass, who created a beautiful memorial to heroes of the five branches of armed forces.
There are many festivals and events throughout the year in this tiny resort community, so you can always find too much to do for just a week-end. Superb accommodations and restaurants abound. In the Quechee area, known for its numerous placid lakes, The Quechee Inn at Marshland Farm is on the National HIstoric Register, preserved from 1793. It has withstood being moved back to accommodate the nearby river and pond and is a quaint, historic place to stay. The restaurant is excellent, with special baked goods made on sight. We even persuaded the cook to indulge us with her delicious creme brulee for breakfast!
Be sure to find just behind the Inn the Wilderness Outfitters in summer for excellent canoe and kayak rentals, conveniently located at the large Dewey’s Pond, where we loved kayaking and watching wildlife. You can also enjoy paddling on the White and Connecticut Rivers. Marty Banak, the owner, also outfits and leads flyfishing and winter sports. Call 802 295 7620.
A visit to the area must include a walk along the quiet pine covered trail above or the granite trail within the impressive Quechee Gorge, just east of the town of Quechee, where the eastward running Ottauquechee River turns abruptly southward and cuts through a narrow cleft in the granite walls. The impressive Gorge is 165 feet deep and over a mile long. With nearly two decades of work to obtain funds, the local residents, spearheaded by the Hartford Area Chamber of Commerce under the direction of Gail Ottman, have accomplished getting an outstanding Visitor Center at the Gorge, with the combined funds and efforts of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Quechee Gorge Management Committee, Vermont Agency of Transportation, the State Parks Department, and the Town of Hartford, VT. Seeing the Gorge is, on a smaller scale, comparable to a visit to the Black Canyon of the Gunnison in Colorado… Not to be missed!
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