http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2012308190006
The Great Hall in the former Fellows Gear Shaper building is a gateway to other businesses in the building, as well as an art gallery and performance space. Former Gear Shaper employees have been hired to work as docents at the gallery and speak about the building's history to visitors. / SARAH PRIESTAP/for the Free Press
Written by
Megan Bantle
Free Press Correspondent
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Carolyn Enz Hack with her sculpture, 'Sowing Good Will,' a piece created especially for the Great Hall opening and made of layers of chicken wire and cut paper. / Photo by Lynn Barrett
Upcoming Exhibitions
WHERE: The Great Hall, One Hundred River Street, Springfield (site of the old Fellows Gear Shaper factory)
HOURS: 12-4 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, daily hours beginning in the fall
NOV. 9, 2012 - JUNE 1, 2013: Sabra Field, Dan O’Donnell, Karen Mullen, Pat Musick
SEPTEMBER 2013 - JANUARY 2014: Fran Bull, Dick Weiss, Harry Rich, Pat Musick
MORE INFORMATION: 802-885-3061, www.facebook.com/GreatHallSpringfield
Pictured from top left: Artists Carolyn Enz Hack with her sculpture, “Sowing Good Will;” Patty Sgrecci installing her mobile; and Scot Borofsky standing beside his spray paint canvas. All three artists have work on display in Springfield’s new Great Hall.
The Great Hall in the former Fellows Gear Shaper building is a gateway to other businesses in the building, as well as an art gallery and performance space. Former Gear Shaper employees have been hired to work as docents at the gallery and speak about the building's history to visitors.
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Artist Patty Sgrecci's mobile was the first piece of art to hang in the Great Hall. / Photo by Lynn Barrett
Sculptor Oliver Schemm of Saxton's River demonstrates his sculpture, 'Helm,' an interactive sculpture which currently is placed at the center of the Great Hall in the former Fellows Gear Shaper building in Springfield.
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Sculptor Oliver Schemm of Saxton's River demonstrates his sculpture, 'Helm,' an interactive sculpture which currently is placed at the center of the Great Hall in the former Fellows Gear Shaper building in Springfield. / SARAH PRIESTAP/for the FREE PRESS
SPRINGFIELD — Onlookers stood back as the first piece of art ever to adorn the Great Hall ascended to its place in the air. Patty Sgrecci’s mobile, comprised of suspended colorful balls and metal shapes, was the first piece installed in the new art venue’s inaugural exhibition, “Emergence.”
Nina Jamison, coordinator of the Great Hall and founder of the Gallery at the VAULT, also in Springfield, stood back to look up at the dangling mobile.
“My God, look at that in this space,” she said. Sgrecci’s work is beautiful because of the way it inhabits its space, not filling it completely but leaving air for the pieces of the mobile to float in.
While it is too large for most other galleries, the Great Hall is able to accommodate large pieces like Sgrecci’s due to its 25-foot high ceiling. Combined with the large clerestory-like windows, the ceiling gives the space the look of an industrial cathedral. The room’s physical characteristics may remind patrons of the building’s history as part of the Fellows Gear Shaper Company plant, a leading producer of machine tools during World War II.
When John Meekin, Rick Genderson and his brother Jon Genderson bought the old Fellows building in 2010 they had no idea the time and money that would eventually go into the building to save it.
“Everything cost more than we thought,” Rick Genderson said.
While the Great Hall currently looks like an established art gallery, a lot was done to the space before it was ready to open. Jamison described the room initially as a mess of wires and pigeons. “It wasn’t really a great hall,” Genderson said. It wasn’t until the space was cleaned up that they realized it was something special. “We wanted to fix it and make it shine again.”
While the space was beautifully redone with an elegant color scheme of maroon and light blue, the developers did not completely disregard the hall’s past in its makeover. Instead, they embraced the industrial aspects of the room by leaving iron columns and using metal light fixtures. The result is a 150-foot-long by 45-foot-wide public art space capable of accomodating large-scale works.
Re: “We’re a town that has been economically challenged for many years,” Flint said. “This project will be a cornerstone to the revitalization of Springfield.”
ReplyDeleteAhhh, the wishful musings of the ever hopeful Springfield intelligentsia, who continue to grasp at straws for the "revitalization" of the town -- now some 30 years in the making without success!
The Great Hall, like the Tech Center, Prison, Wreck Center, and Springfield On the Move's new logo/motto before it, is but another placebo being fed to the town's citizens to keep them sufficiently "medicated" so as to remain placated by the failings of the town's incompetent leadership.
100 River Street is destined to be just the latest White Elephant in the three ring circus that Springfield has become. Wedged between a river on one side and blighted hillside neighborhoods on the other, it lacks ease of access, adequate parking, and signage for prospective commercial occupants - not to mention the complications that winter weather and snow and ice removal will bring.
Once again, Springfield's chearleaders, pom poms in hand, are hallucinating on the pipe dream that metropolitan delights are to be delivered by each of their poorly conceived
pet projects. Springfield is still waiting...
If this is a placebo, exactly what is the medicine that you prescribe?
DeleteDoes anyone remember when the building on Mineral Street, where the DMV is now, opened?
ReplyDeleteThere were problems from day one with air pollution and workers calling it a
"sick building". I wonder if the same thing will happen at 100 River Street.
Yeah, but they eventually got it under control. In this building they won't have to call very loud or far. There was a similar problem in a building down in Brattleboro, but the people are getting better at renovating the ventilation, dealing with mold, etc.
Deletere: "exactly what is the medicine that you prescribe?"
ReplyDeleteThis has been beat to death here. But at the chance of influential new ears to enlighten; tech based businesses can not thrive in Springfield because there is no available labor pool of well educated and skilled workers.
The root cause is two fold, including both the school system and demographics.
To grow or even sustain a business, employers rely upon workers entering the labor force. As one third of the students drop out, they become effectively unemployable for anything other then minimum wage. About half the students go on to school with few returning. What remains is insufficient to meet the demand.
High tech employers offering attractive salaries require key people. Successful, upward bound people that are typically recruited from parallel businesses. Because Springfield is such a fetid rat hole with a failing school, no one with any career potential would relocate their family here. Thus was the plight of Stantec. Additionally, due to Vermont income tax on non residents, local employers are at a disadvantage to draw from the regional labor pool in NH.
So explain to me again how tacky art work will revitalize the economy here?
Okay you explained the problem, was still waiting to here how you propose to reverse it. Or is this just a oh this place sucks, shrug, move on type of thing. I agree that we are exporting our best and brightest minds and we are in fact producing some brilliant young people from our school. But I agree the vast majority are going off to college and not coming back -- but recently that trend has seen a change which is demonstrated by the age of some of the people who have been pushing on the Selectboard. But you are right we need to get more of them coming back. The engineers aren't coming back, at least not yet and perhaps never so Stantec was pretty much doomed it was too dependent on the machine shops and all the engineering action right now is primarily in industrial parks clustered around and affiliated with research universities. So trying to bring that back to Springfield is going to be difficult, although we do have some research engineering going on across the river at Whelen Industries. So the medicine isn't going to be some shot in the manufacturing arm -- although if they don't keep killing projects in North Springfield we might see some innovative energy related stuff come out of there. I am not an art critic so I can't opine on whether the art is tacky or not -- I rather doubt that it is. There is a lot going on in the graphic arts right now coupled with design since manufacturing has for the most part been shipped overseas. So why not art? And if not art then what do you propose other than just throwing stones at anyone who experiments with anything?
DeleteHow many glowing tales about the "Great Hall" do the Springfield citizens have to endure before they figure out that a sad joke has been played upon them at their own expense? How about a story about how the town is fixing their broken school system or how they finally killed the environment disaster being pitched as the latest taxpayer boondoggle in North Springfield by the scheming Flint and crew for a few to profit. I guess those stories will never come as the town is selectively destroyed. Maybe some writer will finally expose what is going on in Springfield instead of writing complicit puff pieces and the "Great Hall" will finally get it's just name....the "Great Con".
ReplyDeleteHey where is the report on how much money was raised at the "Great Fiasco" Springfield Chamber of Commerce Barn Star Auction? The silence is deafening. Surely some paid hack can write an story of exaggerated praise about that for the town's elite.
ReplyDeleteWhether it did or it did not make any money, i'm sure it was well attended and it gave people something to do other than complain about there being nothing to do in town.... Some people are trying, you my friend are just another annoyance complaining rather than acting. #spfldcomplainerwhodoesntcontribute #dosomething
DeleteI am sure lots of former SHS students were there spending their loot on foolish items with the money they earned in their great careers that they got because they attended the broken Springfield school system. Maybe the town's elite can find "something else to do" like fixing the busted school system instead of letting the masses eat cake while they party on.
DeleteAre you saying we could fill the great hall with all of the unsold barn stars ?
DeleteThey are fixing the busted school system 12:20. It doesnt fix itself in just one day, it takes time. Many young teachers have been hired in the last few years in our school system and by the looks of it many are from our own area. #youthmovement #takeyournegativitytobellowsfalls
ReplyDeleteYou are kidding right? There is absolutely nothing occurring to fix the broken Springfield school system. The incompetents running the system who broke it are still in charge. No one fired, no one replaced. Hiring "many young teachers" will not fix it. It takes competent and willing administrators to fix it. Sadly there are none.
Delete#applythen
Deletewhat do you mean 1:09...
Deletesomeday S.H.S. alumni will buy barn stars ??
and the new teachers will make sure of that ??
or are you just going to take the barn stars along with the cake to Bellows Falls.
#hahahaha
I never said anything about SHS alumni buying barn stars #pay attention #whatcake
ReplyDelete