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SculptureFest, an outdoor exhibition in Woodstock, dissolves another constraint: walls.
Now in its 33rd year, SculptureFest (also stylized on its website as Sculpture Fest and Sculpturefest) is home to work from at least 30 artists, many of them based in New England. It’s also home to SculptureFest co-directors Charlet and Peter Davenport, who have lived on the 32-acre property since they purchased it in 1963. Over time, the sprawling, grassy site at 304 Prosper Road has acquired pieces large and small, grave and whimsical, poetic and sharply political.
Charlet Davenport herself is unsure how many sculptures were on her property, exactly — she guessed around 50, though I suspect there are quite a few more — since some of them are so small, subtle or smoothly integrated into the property’s vines and bushes that she’s lost track of them. It’s easy to miss these smaller works en route to the larger, more attention-grabbing pieces and it would take many hours, longer than my late afternoon visit lasted, to find them all.
And so exploring SculptureFest becomes a bit of a scavenger hunt. After a while, I started to peel my eyes for incongruous colors and materials, which nonetheless continued to surprise: The interior wall of a shed, for example, had sprouted Growth, rubber castings by Lela Keen Jaacks that resemble red fungi growing up and down the height of the structure.
Growth and other pieces make Jaacks a standout in SculptureFest. The Brownsville-based artist does a lot with a little; her work is quietly thoughtful, perhaps because it does not need to be loud in order to be heard. In Pipe Dreams, an assortment of short copper pipes stand upright on a broad wooden plank. The industrial material of the pipes contrasts with the greenery of its surroundings, even more so for the pipes’ resemblance to a city skyline when viewed at a distance.
But close up, the hollow bodies of the pipes reveal themselves. Many of these interiors are a rusty orange, whereas others are bright with verdigris, that green-blue that copper takes on when it oxidizes. The pipes’ internal weathering, suggestive of transformation and the acquisition of richness over time, makes strange beauty out of a chemical reaction that we usually take measures to correct or avoid.
Other pieces had a more baffling effect, though this was generally in all the right ways. One of the strongest of these headscratchers was Field Notes on Visual Jazz, by Roger Goldenberg, of Lebanon. True to the musical genre its title refers to, the work expands the boundaries of what sculpture can be: Four large, two-dimensional disc-like shapes, painted in colorful abstract designs, dangle off the branch-like extensions of a central support system made up of many black filaments. The colored discs respond to even the smallest breath of wind, dipping and spinning like a carousel on its axis.
The structure appears worryingly flimsy, but it didn’t budge when I tried to give it a wiggle. Somehow, though, by interacting with the piece on a tactile level, I made those shapes dance about. Much like my feelings toward jazz, I have no idea how the piece works from a technical standpoint, but I admire it. It injects a welcome dose of whimsy into a collection that, by virtue of the most common sculpture mediums, has its fair share of more serious earth tones.
Davenport believes the range of work at SculptureFest speaks not only to the vast possibilities of sculpture itself, but also to a particular creative sensibility she has come to associate with New England.
“I think altogether that (the pieces) express a regional diversity,” said Davenport. “They are representative of … the wonderful diversity of the art made in New England.”
In addition to SculptureFest’s location at 304 Prosper Road, three-dimensional artwork peppers the Davenports’ parcel of land across the street, which connects to King Farm Road and abuts the Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historical Park. Davenport, 77, took me on a tour of both sites in her bright orange Kubota RTV, which climbed the steep hills like a four-wheeled mountain goat. Her 13-year-old corgi, Mima, came along for the ride.
“Mima loves sculpture,” Davenport said by way of explanation.
Over the guttural roar of the motor, I could make out Davenport telling me about how she and her husband decided to preserve the property. Aside from the trails blazed through the forests and fields, courtesy of groundskeeper Peter, the land has been left to its own devices.
“We thought we should just keep it as is,” she said, waving her hand vaguely around the meadow our mowed path had parted. “It’s so much better this way, don’t you think?” A sea of goldenrod and Queen Anne’s lace waved back.
Back at the Prosper Road site, the Kubota zoomed through the low-hanging branches of a crabapple tree, our bodies taking out more than a few twigs in the process. A brief downpour of apples thudded down on us.
“It’s a wild ride,” Davenport yelled over the motor, laughing.
Given the Davenports’ fondness for letting wild things be, it’s noteworthy when they choose to modify the SculptureFest landscape to emphasize or add texture to a certain piece, as in Leah Woods’ Private Conversation.
To approach the piece, you follow a short path that cuts through an otherwise unmown portion of the property. It leads to a wide, circular clearing, at the center of which are two figures carved out of wood. I call them figures because although they are virtually featureless and certainly not human, it’s impossible not to personify them: Woods, who is based in New Hampshire, has created an intimacy between the figures. They lean toward each other, edges curved in, as if to amplify the sound of a whisper. And though they are one of the visual centerpieces of a property that’s open to all, we cannot access the contents of their conversation.
Woods’ piece captures a certain alchemy that appears throughout SculptureFest: the landscape as an extension of the art itself, and vice versa.
SculptureFest, located at 304 Prosper Road in Woodstock, features work by Judith Wrend and Joseph Chirchirillo, with Murray Dewart as a special guest artist. Other sculptors showing new work are: Brooks Baird, Charlet Davenport, Herb Ferris, Liz Fletcher, Roger Goldenberg, Bruce Hathaway, John Hikory, Lela Keen Jaacks, Justin Kenney, Robert Markey, Jay Mead, Leah Woods and Zoe Frie. On view through foliage season.
Of Note
The Main Street Museum in White River Junction is holding its annual pan-Slavic celebration Saturday from 6 to 9 p.m., with this year’s theme as “Russian Revolution: 100 Years” to commemorate the centennial of the 1917 Russian Revolution. The event will include art, music, food and film. Suggested $20 donation.
Also, the Main Street Museum is celebrating its 25th birthday with a benefit concert on Aug. 25 featuring New York composers and musicians Nico Muhly and Nadia Sirota. Tickets for the benefit range from $45 to $65 and are available through the museum’s website, mainstreetmuseum.org. All proceeds from the event benefit the museum.
Ongoing
AVA Gallery and Art Center, Lebanon. The 103 works of art in the Juried Summer Exhibition, selected by Hood Museum of Art director John Stomberg, through Sept. 23. Kira’s Garden, an outdoor show featuring Upper Valley sculptors, includes work from Scott Gordon of Norwich, Lela Keen Jaacks of Brownsville, Michael Kraatz and Susan Russell of Canaan, John Kemp Lee of White River Junction and Abraham Oort of Hartland. On view through Aug. 23.
Recently opened at Pompanoosuc Mills showrooms in East Thetford is an exhibition of work by artists who also show at AVA. This is the fifth year that the showrooms have exhibited work by AVA artists. Participating artists are: Joe Carton, Claremont; Penny Koburger, Enfield; Judy Laliberte, Quechee; Elizabeth Mayor, Hanover; Rosamond Orford, Norwich; and Sue Schiller, Norwich. The exhibition runs through Sept. 23.
Aidron Duckworth Art Museum, Meriden. “Pride of Plainfield,” a community exhibition celebrating the town’s agricultural richness through photographs, articles and audio, is up through Oct. 29. Featured businesses include Edgewater Farm, Garfield’s Smokehouse, Hall Apiaries, McNamara Dairy, Noda Farm, Riverview Farm and Taylor Brothers Farm.
Also up at the museum is “Bartelli Murals Remembered,” which looks back on the past of Route 120 in Lebanon through a 1990 mural by the late Plainfield painter Aidron Duckworth. Through Sept. 10.
BigTown Gallery, Rochester, Vt. “Land, Sea & Sky,” nature-inspired oil paintings by South Royalton-based Peter Brooke, and an exhibit of prints and sculpture by the late Hugh Townley are on view through Sept. 10. “Commune,” an exhibition of photographs of buildings by Boston and Vermont-based photographer Erik Baier, continues through Sept. 9.
Center for the Arts, Lake Sunapee. Three exhibitions are up in the New London area. Photographs by New London resident Larry Harper are on view in the exhibition “Kearsarge and Beyond” at the Lake Sunapee Bank in New London. Enfield artist Amy Fortier exhibits “Faux-Zaics” in the micro-gallery at Whipple Hall. Maria Blanck, a part-time resident of New London, and Springfield, N.H. artist Yvonne Shukovsky show their work in the exhibition “Potpourri” in the lobby of the New London Inn. All three shows run through Oct. 28.
Chandler Gallery, Randolph. “Scale: Models to Monuments” explores the history and impact of public art through sculpture and photography. Randolph sculptor Jim Sardonis curated the exhibit. On view through Sept. 2.
Chelsea Public Library. “Moving Paint, Moving Bodies,” an exhibit by the longtime Chelsea dance artist Hannah Dennison, highlights the relationship between Dennison’s dance career and her paintings. Through August.
Cider Hill Art Gallery, Windsor. The gallery and garden center exhibits sculpture, painting and installations by Steven Proctor, Herb Ferris, Gary Haven Smith, the Mythmakers and Gary Milek.
Converse Free Library, Lyme. Members of the artists’ group Odanaksis show their work in the exhibition “Summer Time in Lyme.” Through Sept. 30.
Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, Lebanon. The hospital’s summer art exhibit includes the work of seven New England artists: Mark Bolton, Carol Keiser, Alison Palizzolo, Richard Perry, Sheryl Trainor and Robin Weisburger. It also features masks created by patients in the psychiatric unit as part of the project “The Faces of Mental Illness and Healing.” Through September.
Hall Art Foundation, Reading, Vt. There are three shows currently on view: “Hope and Hazard: A Comedy of Eros,” a show of more than 80 paintings on the subject of romantic and sexual love; “Ready. Fire! Aim,” a collaboration between the foundation and Burlington City Arts; and a solo show by David Shrigley. All run through Nov. 26.
Hood Downtown, Hanover. “The Everyday Fantastic,” an exhibition of photographs by Missouri photographer Julie Blackmon, is on view through Aug. 27.
Howe Library, Hanover. On display in Ledyard Gallery is an exhibition of photographs by Max Fehr. Each photo is paired with one of Fehr’s poems. The show runs through Oct. 4.
Kilton Public Library, West Lebanon. Susan Pearson, a pastel artist from Canaan, exhibits her work during regular library hours through Sept. 30.
Norman Williams Public Library, Woodstock. An exhibit featuring diverse work from the craft group Women of Wonder (WOW) is on view through Sept. 30.
Norwich Public Library. An exhibition of work by Claremont artists (and husband and wife) Sue Lawrence and Andrew Williams titled “Together, Captured Moments in Realism” closes Aug. 26.
Osher at Dartmouth, Hanover. “The Outsiders,” a show of work by Anne Hartmann, Judith Pettingell and Ann Semprebon, runs through Aug. 24.
Royalton Memorial Library, South Royalton. Lindsey Cole, a seventh-generation Vermonter and South Royalton native with a master’s degree in environmental law from Vermont Law School, shows paintings, drawings and photographs through Sept. 29.
Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site, Cornish. Nancy Azara’s exhibition, “Passage of the Ghost Ship: Trees and Vines,” is up at the Picture Gallery through Sept. 10. Admission is included in the $10 entry fee to the park.
Scavenger Gallery, White River Junction. For the month of August, Scavenger Gallery takes up residence in Hartland at the blacksmith’s shop and studio at 11 Brownsville Road, across from Skunk Hollow Tavern. Hopkins will show her collection of cast animal and bird skulls provided to her by the Vermont Institute of Natural Sciences in Quechee. The White River location will re-open in September.
Tunbridge Public Library. The group show “Connecting Fibers” features fiber art by Susan Cain, Judy Cayer, Louise Clark, Carrie Cooker, Christina Duffy, Betty LaWhite, Karyn Lord, Caitlyn Macglaflin, Katrina Mojzesz, Fern Strong and Belinda Whipple Worth. Through Aug. 26.
Two Rivers Printmaking Studio, White River Junction. Recent work by Nori Pepe is on view through September. A mid-exhibition reception is scheduled for Sept. 1 from 6 to 8 p.m.
White River Gallery at BALE, South Royalton. The paintings of Patrick Dunfey are on view through Sept. 30.
Zollikofer Gallery, White River Junction. “Up Close in White River Junction,” a tribute by members of the White River Junction branch of the Vermont Watercolor Society to the wealth of historic architecture in town, is up through August.
EmmaJean Holley can be reached at eholley@vnews.com or 603-727-3216.