Category: Grantee Stories

“It’s really a blessing when you get to love what you do.” Heather Geoffrey, the new managing director at Main Street Arts in Saxtons River said that about her job. Few people are as qualified as she to make that statement. Heather teaches people to uncover self-expression through art and through the shaping of their life. She has decades of experience in nonprofits; having served as education and outreach coordinator, executive administrator, assistant director, and director in different organizations. She is also an artist, painter, poet, and photographer. She is a teacher. How about mystic or healer? "All of those are accurate," she says. Read More

Upcoming grant rounds for the Artists in Schools and Animating Infrastructure Grant programs will speak volumes about the Council's priorities in grantmaking. We leave the ignition of wonder and insight in classrooms and communities to qualified, skilled professionals — the celebrated artists of Vermont. In supporting their work, we strive to expand arts opportunities, cultivate creative placemaking, and energize Vermont's creative economy. These concepts are not new; it is with renewed focus the Council pushes them into the limelight. These excerpts from our last Annual Report foreshadowed the direction of the Council's grantmaking. Read More

Seven speakers and three performers will take the stage at the Spruce Peak Performing Arts Center in Stowe Saturday, August 4. Each will explore, through the lens of the arts, the topic of women and power. “Reclamation” at Stowe’s Helen Day Art Center is the show from which these talks spring. Portraits of women, painted by women, and curated by women express joy, fear, solidarity, defiance, and wondering. Twenty-three paintings and two lithographs make an exhibit inspired by the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements. The art asks to be witnessed, celebrated, and discussed. Through these acts power is taken back, which is reclamation. Read More

Vermont Arts Exchange (VAE) has built a reputation over almost 25 years of turning trash into treasure. The organization has therefore become a depository for strange and unusual items. One donation years ago showed up in the form of over 50 plaster molds. These included baby doll parts: round plump heads, angelic arms, and chubby legs. Various objects and sculptures were created with these — all reminiscent of Tim Burton’s Gothic world — until the molds found another purpose. Within a ceramics class, VAE teaching artist Kristen Blaker and the residents at the Vermont School for Girls (VSG) actually started making dolls; clay was pressed into the molds and parts were fired. The assembly of hand-sewn and stuffed bodies came into play. Wigs, bonnets, and dresses were made, faces delicately painted. Read More

The features read like a wish list. Start with rehearsal spaces for performance groups. Add a percussion studio, a recital hall within the music education building, and a performance-quality auditorium that seats 224. A green room? Adjacent. There are fourteen teaching studios and a large multi-use classroom for programs and community music projects. Considerations have been made throughout for quality acoustics and physical accessibility. There's more: A music library, archive, and inventory of instruments. A designated faculty lounge and work area and a welcoming space for families and students. Convenient parking. Read More

Sometimes, getting somewhere else requires knowing where you are. Stepping into leadership at a decades-old organization can be like that; you'll need your bearings. Kathryn Lovinsky had them when she started at the nonprofit Grass Roots Arts and Community Effort (G.R.A.C.E.). Kathryn knows the magic of making art. She knows Hardwick. Now she is discovering the ways to balance longstanding tradition with new ideas. Hardwick is a Northeast Kingdom town with a population of about 3,000 and chartered in 1781. The Firehouse was built in 1885. G.R.A.C.E. was founded in 1975; they bought and moved into the Firehouse in the early 2000s. Kathryn became executive director in September 2015. Read More