Women in the arts are bucking the widely accepted belief that creativity is a product of youth, and as we age our energy and our ability to inspire or be inspired dwindles. Madonna, 57, and Meryl Streep, 66, are international stars who have not let aging slow them down. They continue to infuse their work with new ideas that keep audiences enthralled, and painter Georgia O’Keeffe was active until she died at the age of 99.

Vermont has its share of women whose creative energy has kept them actively at work well into their 80s, a time when many of us feel we are lucky to be able to still walk the dog. It didn’t take much digging to discover three amazing women: Alexandra Heller, Claire Van Vliet, and Fay Webern—all with long, productive lives behind them and exciting new opportunities and projects still ahead.

It was a June 2015 press release that initially brought my attention to Fay Webern. The release announced that Webern, 88, would be reading excerpts from her soon-to-be released book The Button Thief of East 14th Street: Scenes from a Life on the Lower East Side 1927–1957 at the Light Club Lamp Shop in Burlington.

The accompanying photographs on the release captured the dramatic aura and energy that Webern exudes: her regal, chiseled features and beautifully expressive hands commanded immediate attention. The images suggested that this woman was a natural performer and storyteller, a first impression that was confirmed when I later met her.

Continue Reading...

---

Of Art and Madness: The Story of Camille Claudel

by Kate Mueller

For the last 22 Septembers, Art Hop has brought together a wide range of artists, while drawing scores of visitors to Burlington’s South End. The upcoming Hop will feature 500 artists stretched over more than 100 sites, according to Adam Brooks, executive director of SEABA.

The South End Arts and Business Association, or SEABA, organizes the Hop, and is on the cusp of staging the annual 23rd show. Running September 11 through 13, ground zero for the Hop is the Queen City’s South End Art District. In fact, Burlington’s South End businesses along the Pine Street corridor are reinvented and take on the appearance of art galleries.

“We work on the Art Hop really year-round,” said Brooks, from his Pine Street office. “There’s a lot of planning, research, and marketing, and it takes eight to nine months to really make it happen.”

The growth of the Hop to a year-round event is best exemplified by the time frame in which invitations go out to artists to display their work. The application period for this year’s Hop stretched from February 26 to June 20—a window large enough to ensure that a diverse base of artists and exhibitors would be on hand at the Hop.

Throughout the more than two decades that Art Hop has run, the event has grown, gaining a reputation as Vermont’s “largest and best arts festival,” celebrating the Queen City’s art and unique culture. There’s also the economic boom the Hop brings to Burlington. With upward of 30,000 visitors flooding the area for the event, estimates are that over $1 million is added to local coffers.

Continue Reading...

 

With this issue, Vermont Woman launches a new column dedicated to our environment. We are fortunate to live in a state where protecting our environment is a priority for residents and for our government leaders: this is not a given in other states. But we are affected by other states’ choices and corporate and national policies over which we have little influence.

“Listen to Your Mother” will highlight current topics and bring you the most informed perspectives on issues that concern us all, such as divestment, renewable energy, and carbon pollution tax, and invite experts to write on these topics.

In this inaugural column, scientist Mollie Mattsen writes about the oil trains on Lake Champlain. Vermont Woman is committed to bringing its readers comprehensive, accurate reporting on environmental issues that matter to Vermonters: let us know what you’d like to hear about.

---

Fracking for oil and gas is banned in Vermont and New York, and both states are among the greenest in the nation. But that doesn’t exempt them from being cogs in the machine of the vast fossil fuel industry. In recent years, the Champlain Valley has become a locus of oil industry operations in a more direct way than ever before. The disturbing face of the global petroleum economy is now squarely in our midst, and our communities, waters, and wildlife habitat are at risk, just as they are in so many other parts of the world.

Continue Reading...

In 2009, when 22-year-old Representative Kesha Ram (D-Chittenden) first tried to get her ID card at the State House, the administrators behind the desk told her the line was “only for legislators.” Though her soon-to-be colleagues, who were lined up with Ram, confirmed that she had, in fact, been elected to the legislature, Ram still had to sign more paperwork than normal to prove her rightful place.

After relating the story to her chairwoman, Representative Helen Head (D-South Burlington), Head asked Ram “Do you think it’s because you’re young, you’re a woman, or you’re a person of color?”

“All of the above,” answered Ram. “How do I separate these things?”

However, now 29 and in her fourth term, Ram says it’s a “blessing” to be young, female, and nonwhite because she can “find common ground” with and articulate the experience of so many Vermonters in her work at the State House.

When she was just starting out, she asked now former representative and almost 40-year State House veteran Michael Obuchowski for his counsel. He replied, “If you act like the youngest legislator, set yourself apart like the youngest legislator, people are going to treat you like the youngest legislator, and you don’t want that. You want to find common ground with people—what keeps them up at night, what gets them up in the morning, and work on the issues. Keep your head down, and do good work.” Ram says it was some of the best advice she ever got.

Continue Reading...