Pastoral Exhibition 2008

In several rooms in the historic Kent Tavern Museum in Calais, Vermont, work by six artists was installed alongside art and objects from their personal collections that provided biographical insights into each artist’s creative history and inspirations.

Also on View were:

Louise Andrews Kent’s
Miniature Rooms
Collection of the Kent Tavern Museum, Vermont Division for Historic Preservation

Kent Family Portraits and
Landscape by James Franklin Gilman
Collection of the Vermont Historical Society

An Installation
In: A Poem by Carol Westberg

Sunday Events included:

Historic Site Tour
John Dumville, Historic Sites Operations Chief, Vermont Division for Historic Preservation, lead a tour—inside and outside—of the Kent Tavern Museum.

Artist Talks
Charles Shackleton, Miranda Thomas, Susan Jane Walp, John Kemp Lee, and Glenn Suokko talked about their artistic histories and inspirations.

Performance
Timothy Cummings performed traditional Irish, Scottish, and English music on bagpipes and Irish flutes.

Reading
Carol Westberg read selections from her recent collection of poems, Slipstream.

Nature Conservancy Hike at Chickering Bog
Rose Paul, naturalist with The Nature Conservancy of Vermont, lead a walk into one of Vermont’s special natural places to see and learn about its enchanting orchids, carnivorous pitcher plants, and unique history.

Exhibition Tour
Focusing on how history informs contemporary art, exhibition organizer Glenn Suokko lead a tour of works in the exhibition.

About Kents Corners

Kents Corners is a rare, rural community that has remained virtually intact for over 170 years. The 19th-century buildings include a tavern, barns, outbuildings, a sawmill, several houses, and, not far away, a meetinghouse. Most of the building materials used for the tavern and the neighboring structures were made or produced within Kents Corners or close by: brick was made on site, wood was harvested from the woodlands and milled at the sawmill, granite came from a nearby quarry, and ironwork was forged in the local blacksmith shop. The peaceful simplicity that Kents Corners personifies reflects a sensibility that makes it—and Vermont—unique in the United States.

Special thanks to the Vermont Division for Historic Preservation for providing the Kent Tavern Museum as the host site for the Pastoral 2008 exhibition.

For more information about Kent Tavern see: http://www.historicvermont.org/kent/