A WEEKEND IN VERMONT

For some years Memorial Day weekend has been Vermont's Open Studios for Art and Crafts.  Fewer artisans exhibited, it seemed to me, than in the past and I thought there were fewer attendees.  I'm assuming the economy has something to do with it overall.  Traditionally, friends who live in Vermont have taken me wherever they chose to go and, the rest of the time we fed our long-term friendship.

As a 'flatlander' (one who does not live in mountainous VT), I thoroughly enjoyed being a Subaru-front-seat passenger over the state on back roads. Road names are either after some obscure figure or are descriptive, like Upper Middle Hill Road, Middle Hill Road., and Lower Middle Hill Road.  Another I liked was Deeper Rut Road.  There was Pleasant Valley, Hidden Valley and River Road...pretty straight forward there, sort of 'wysiwyg'.  What looked like fog was brush fire smoke from Quebec, blown by the wind all the way to Cape Cod and beyond.

A few years ago, few streets actually had names other than Town Road 11, or such.  That seemed quite adequate to me but will 911 came the need to change all those to peoples' names.  I thought that took away a bit of the rural charm with the change.

A bit of trivia was given to me.  I wondered why Berlin is pronounce (in VT as well as the one in NH) with the accent on the first syllable not on the second as the Berlin in Germany is pronounced.  I was told that it was because there were a few WW II German prisoners who were housed there and cheered when they saw the sign of the town name.  Citizen's thereafter moved the accent.

Vermonters have long been known for the economy and venturesome thinking of their words, eg. Home Hill Inn and  Blow-Me-Down Grange.  Calvin Coolidge, known as a man of few words was said to have been accosted by a woman at a party who said she had made a bet that she could make him same more than two words.  His response, "You lose."

VERMONT OPEN STUDIO WEEKEND

Some people make a yearly pilgrimage to Mecca; I make mine to visit friends in Vermont where we visit as many Open Studios as time and energy permits. Few experiences are nicer than being driven around Vermont by good friends with whom experiences of 42 years of our lives have been shared.

Vermont is beautiful at this time of year, with varying shades of clean, green foliage that has not yet been chewed up by caterpillars or whatever else chomps on them. Opportunists, counting on all those out for the Open Arts and Crafts Studios were having yard sales, lawn sales, tag sales, barn sales and any other kind of sale possible. Flowering shrubs were in full bloom as were apple trees and any other flowering fruit tree imaginable. Distinctive to Vermont homes is the acreage in front of almost all homes, perfectly manicured by any or all family members on their sit-down mowers. On one huge estate, master and mistress were on his and her tractors, mowing a lawn that had already been turned into velvet by the hired landscapers. It seems to be a local pastime around there.

In one town traffic was slowed for a 'coin drop' for the volunteer firemen; later for a 'bottle drop' to send a boy on a school trip to Italy.

Artists were patient with those of us who were asking questions and buying very little (commonly known as 'tire kickers' in automobile showrooms). We were given a demonstration by a blacksmith on how to turn a piece of iron pipe, about eight inches long, into an abstract duck. The yard was filled with artistic versions of crows, dragonflies, mayflies, caterpillars, lobsters, clocks, candlesticks, menorahs, and many other articles created by this talented artist.

In the Northeast Kingdom, near the Canadian border in Newport, we saw a wood carver of birds. He had quit his stressful job job as the only orthopedic surgeon in the area and was devoting himself to his carving. Admittedly his pieces were selling for two or three thousand dollars each, which sounds like a great price, but he said if he paid himself $10 and hour, it would not cover the time spent on his carvings. Over and over we visited happy creators whose love of their work was effusively projected. Everyone freely described how they did the work, produced the product or art, and seemed grateful for feedback.

The Vermont Arts Council which sponsors this wonderful experience every year over the Memorial Day weekend, should be on the calendar of anyone interested in an eye opening experience through the eyes of people who have found a way to make life fun and eat off it.