ArtStream trailer: Art gallery on wheels

A 1969 silver Globetrotter Airstream travel trailer, converted to a mobile art gallery, rolled into Springfield on Thursday, showcasing eight artists who usually can be seen at the Frog Hollow Vermont State Craft Center.
http://www.rutlandherald.com/article/20150828/NEWS02/708289893

Frog Hollow Craft Center artist Aaron Stein shows off his own trailer — made entirely from license plates — at the 1969 Airstream trailer art gallery across Main Street from the VAULT Gallery in Springfield. Photo: Photo by Len EmeryPublished August 28, 2015 in the Rutland Herald ArtStream trailer: Art gallery on wheels By SUSAN SMALLHEER Staff Writer SPRINGFIELD — A 1969 silver Globetrotter Airstream travel trailer, converted to a mobile art gallery, rolled into Springfield on Thursday, showcasing eight artists who usually can be seen at the Frog Hollow Vermont State Craft Center. The converted Airstream was a tidy and ingenious 120-square-foot display case, complete with videos of all the artists on a television screen, said Rob Hunter, executive director of the Burlington-based gallery. The Airstream was set up on the lawn across Main Street from another Vermont State Craft Center, the Gallery at the VAULT, and showed photographs, sculptures and paintings. A sculpture of an almost-life-size dog greeted people at the door. The traveling exhibit, which will next head to the Woodstock Green for the weekend, is an effort to bring art to people, including videos of the artists working and explaining their art. “We’re breaking out of our Burlington-centric show,” Hunter said. Frog Hollow, first founded in Middlebury, has had its share of growing pains. State craft centers in Middlebury and Manchester have been closed, and the gallery on Church Street in Burlington has been redesigned. The silver trailer, dubbed the ArtStream for its service as a gallery, spent a week on the Church Street Marketplace before heading south, Hunter said. The ArtStream is not in competition with the Gallery at the VAULT, he said. “We’re actually marketing each other,” he said, noting that the two state craft centers don’t have an identical lineup of artists, although they do share some. There is overlap of artists in every Vermont gallery, he said. “It’s important for people to see the scope of what’s being created around the state.” Hunter said that the trailer came about as a project of the Vermont chapter of the American Institute of Architects. The trailer was rebuilt and retrofitted by students at Norwich University. One of the artists included in the mini-show, Aaron Stein of Burlington, said he loves trailers and hopes eventually to make his entire studio mobile. “I love the idea of parking and creating,” Stein said. “It’s kind of a fantasy for me.” Stein’s art is made from recycled license plates, and there is even a small Airstream trailer sculpture made out of license plates as part of the display. He said he made the sculpture about 10 years ago, way before there was an Artstream.