More Outdoor Contemporary Art; The Union Jack Flies Over Vermont

Hey Woolfoot. What did you do today?

Glad you asked. It was Sunday, and an auction day. Luckily, the Understudy was invited to a birthday party in Morrisville. Westfield, home of my beloved Degre Auction House, is en route to Morrisville. Great. Cover for at least partial auction attendance. (Whusband disapproves, why?) The party didn't start til noon and the auction got rolling at 10 AM. The Understudy didn't get word of the plan to "swing by" the auction til she was in the car, and belted in.

Do we have to?!

Yes!


The Understudy 20 minutes into the bidding this morning

By the way, two weeks ago I took Shackleton the auction. He attended voluntarily and had a great time, urging me to bid on all kinds of stuff. He wound up with some old trophies we both loved. Here is his artist's rendition of the auctioneer, done as a live study.



He actually announced, when we got home, that we had a great day at the auction. Note to self, bring Shackleton to the next auction and let the Understudy stay home.

I left a bid on a box of Jackie Kennedy-era ladies gloves at 11:30, the only bidding I managed, and hied it down to the Birthday party. After depositing the Understudy with her friends at the ice skating rink I was off to Stowe, where I hoped to catch at least part of the English Car Show. This event seems to be growing year by year.



Unfortunately, most of the MGs and Triumphs and Jaguars and what have you that I saw were driving down the Mountain Road on their way out of town. Just a few tents coming down and the odd car remained at the show by the time I arrived:


Hey, that's a Rolls Royce, isn't it? No, no, the one up-top, by the tents, not the Mini down below.



It wasn't time to get the Understudy from the party yet, so I walked along the lower section of the Stowe Rec Path. I know, I know, I'm sorry for taking you back to the Rec Path. Maybe someone will have to fine me before I'll really stop blogging about it and photographing it.

Thing is, this is a part of the path I don't usually get to because I think of it as crowded, ending in the village as it does. Well, it wasn't crowded this afternoon and, I soon learned, the Contemporary Art Show that I wrote about a few posts back has straggled off the site of the Helen Day Art Center in the village and many pieces are now on display on this section of the path. So, I wasn't just walking, I was visiting an exhibit. Some of the art was fabulous. This teapot I just loved. I am going to find the artist and send her fan mail.









Isn't that cool - (the wrapped tree-trunks). Derivative of Christo, I suppose, but I liked it. The artist calls it "Chippendale." There was a sign nearby that said the trees would not be harmed by having their trunks wrapped in vinyl for a time. No, just kidding. I made that up. I am sure people are wondering about that, though. This is still Vermont, and Stowe, no less. The trees matter a lot, especially the trees along the Rec Path.

This one, (below) was the only real clunker I saw. Remember that Simpson's Episode where Marge discovers she's actually a great painter? She enters an art show and wins? I recall that one of the other entries in that show was a painting of a unicorn standing on a hill over a smoky, dirty city. A single tear runs down the unicorn's cheek and a thought bubble above his head asks, "Why"? This mini graveyard, with the names and dates of conflicts fought "in the name of religion", goes in the crying unicorn category as far as I am concerned.



By the way, we got the gloves. Ten bucks for 32 pairs - beautifully kept by some woman all the way through the Cold War, all pinned together, perfectly pressed. The Understudy got a pair and so did her friend. She didn't complain about that.

Stowe and Other Thoughts

In my new life as a part-time wage earner I have two weekdays out of the office. Now that the kids have started school, 4o miles from home, I have been conflicted in these first weeks of school about whether I should hang around the vicinity of the school or haul back up to the Last House.

This week, for the first time, I tried hanging around in Lamoille County. As anyone who knows anything about Vermont can tell you, there are lots of nice things to see and do in Lamoille County, which includes many nice little towns including the Vermont tourist mecca, Stowe.

I spent a couple of hours in each of the last few days walking on the Stowe Recreation Path. I first tried a little hike in Weissner woods, which is a trail network through land donated to the Stowe Land Trust by a local concerned citizen. All woods are nice, but the hike did not compare favorably with my beloved Jay woods and I was worried I might get lost (the trails went in many directions). Going to those woods, and walking on the Rec Path had me comparing the two communities (Jay and Stowe). Jay is still nowhere with a ski hill (and now a golf course). Stowe is home to Mount Mansfield, Vermont's highest peak, and it has been a tourist destination for its entire history.

One telling detail, the access to Weissner Woods is easy. Parking has been provided. Trails are marked. However, the trail head emerges between two driveways - long Stowe driveways, where no house is visible. If you could see them, I have no doubt they would have been "architect designed" and be made out of whatever were the best materials available at the time of their construction. Both driveways were marked as private property, to prevent trail seekers from stumbling up the wrong path. One said, "Private Property - Turn Back".

It has not come to this in Jay. It is still tiny and mostly wild. The few inhabitants are natives or sports extremists who want cheap outdoor thrills.

In the Rec Path, the Stowe's essence is distilled. It is beautiful. It curves through woods and cornfieds (hugging Route 108, the Mountain Road and the Stowe Brook). Sculptures (always contemporary) appear here and there. Beds of flowers, well-maintained, pop up around random corners. Iron bridges with wooden planked decks cross and recross the Brook. Access, again , is easy, with parking areas (each with a port-a-potty behind a lattice) are well-marked. Naturally, there are benches and picnic tables and recycling and trash bins. There are also rules, posted at every entrance. The rules are all perfectly reasonable, of course, but effect is rather Swiss. Stowe is a bourgeois town - the most bougy town in the State maybe. The property taxes are huge to support the big police and fire departments. The bougeoisie have their charms. I love them. I am them. But, well, I understand better why the cop I used to work with when I was a deputy State's Attorney in Lamoille County a few years back couldn't stand the place or its typical resident.

FYI:

http://www.gostowe.com/