Southerly Exposure: Self-Sufficient Local Color

The gray tendrils, falling from the purple beret, dipped onto his black shirt and gave the gentleman the look of a trickster in a Beat novel, one who’d definitely been around the block.

http://www.rutlandherald.com/article/20110113/FEATURES17/701139991

Published January 13, 2011 in the Rutland Herald

Southerly Exposure: Self-Sufficient Local Color

CLARA ROSE THORNTON

The gray tendrils, falling from the purple beret, dipped onto his black shirt and gave the gentleman the look of a trickster in a Beat novel, one who’d definitely been around the block.

The beads — handmade himself, thick and colorful — hung in large strands around his neck. That detail added the benevolent touch; perhaps his trickster character is benign, occasionally hoodwinking the world but simply for self-preservation. And at the moment, while he hung his framed oil paintings on the walls of the dining room at a posh southeastern Vermont inn, Rick Hearn looked the part — the salt-of-the earth artisan amid the domain of the moneyed, nails in hand, and a knowing, if not tired, look in his eye.

Weathersfield Inn co-owner Jane Sandalman — a short-haired, determined woman from Chatham, N.J. — came walking through the dining room briskly. She was followed by two out-of-town guests of the inn who’d just arrived, an older couple, saying their main purpose was “to relax.” As Sandalman weaved past Hearn as he knelt at a container of nails and box of approximately 10 small paintings on the floor, she warned her guests to watch out, and added with a chortle, “I should put a sign up: ‘Artists at Work!’”

Hearn was hanging the show “Sketches of Coastal Maine” along with fellow exhibitors Robert O’Brien and Gil Perry, which opens with a 5 to 7 p.m. reception tonight. It’s the first public art show to be held at Weathersfield Inn, a statuesque white mansion dating from 1792, on the border with a tiny village called Perkinsville, pop. 137.

Although she’s owned the inn with her husband, David, since they bought the abandoned property in 2002, and though she is also a visual artist, Sandalman never conceived of having a traditional art exhibition at the storied space before a dinner with longtime friend and American Watercolor Society member O’Brien, who suggested he involve two painter friends and show plein air work they created during a recent trip to Cape Roisier, on Penabscott Bay, in Maine. Normally, Sandalman’s large photos of local agriculture – close-ups of farm-fresh food bushels, animals, the sugaring process — hang casually on the walls. Hence Hearn and company entering the picture, so to speak.

The room came to life: Hearn’s hazy landscapes, the precise and meticulous lines of Perry’s skilled brushwork in oils, and the dreamlike, subtly cartoonish quality that O’Brien’s pastels afford his seascapes, coupled with the piquant flow of his watercolors. As I stood and watched the three shuffle about the dining room crisscrossed by exposed wooden beams and arrays of wine and water glasses spread on each elegant table, I thought to myself, and then said out loud, “You three sure are a motley crew!”

This was my second stop on the day’s art trail. Earlier that morning, Hearn had driven us to Arte Povera, a new community arts and exhibition space in downtown Springfield, where his solo show of layered-image paintings — drastically different from his plein air work at Weathersfield — had opened last Friday. Arte Povera is worlds away from the quaintness and luxury of the inn that sits only 15 minutes away, ensconced in a recently empty storefront in Springfield’s struggling business district. It sports a hand-painted image of a sultry, ethnic, wild-haired woman holding an artist’s palette and the recycling symbol as a welcome into its basement expanse.

Founder Elizabeth Coppola, Springfield native, had met us at the door to talk eagerly about the new organization and her hopes for her town. A woman clad in all black with serious eyes, who in addition to figurative painting also provides a home for a mentally disabled female, began renting in May 2010 and tore out and remodeled its needful interior herself.

“Old green carpet was glued to vinyl tile, which was tar-papered to the floor and thoroughly nailed, 1 inch apart. From the old floorboards I made these benches,” she noted, pointing to a pair by the window that have the rustic and creative look that complements Arte Povera’s stated mission of recycling.

“Arte Povera” means “poor art” in Italian (Coppola’s heritage), and refers to an art movement begun in Italy in the 1960s as a reaction against the structure of the traditional art world. Arte Povera maintained that “you can take anything and make art out of it,” explained Coppola. She’s expanded its meaning to include the maxim, “Art is what you recycle,” and the recycled-material sculptures she showed me, geared for Springfield’s summertime streets, and the classes on environmentalism Arte offers alongside gallery shows and drawing workshops exemplify this.

Hearn’s solo exhibition is the second show at the space. It opened its doors in December, showing Coppola’s quiet figurative and perspective studies and work by area newcomer Jonathan Aaron during its first month. Hearn’s colorful oil pays tribute to Mother Nature and sacred symbols, layered with airbrushed leaves, multiple narratives and psychedelic perspective, show the diversity with which Coppola plans to fortify the town’s creative community.

Hearn had swept me around the space, explaining the idea behind paintings such as “Dalai Llama,” and my personal favorite, an abstract portrait of Walt Whitman on 15 stretched pieces of cardboard titled “Leaves of Grass.” The gnarled head of a lion on the cane he carved himself made him appear regal as he shuffled around, accented by that undeniable hint of back-to-the-land self-sufficiency carried in the demeanors of Vermont artists like Hearn.

Hearn was born in Washington, Conn., where his family split time between stints at a beef, pork, mutton and poultry farm owned by his father in Chester. After attending Maryland Institute of Art in Baltimore in the early ’70s, he worked on a goat farm in Connecticut and experimented with various modes of hippie communal living, before ultimately returning to Vermont as part of the Back to Land movement. In 1980, he bought 20 acres outside Springfield for $8,000 and tilled the land with horses, building his labyrinthine home with his own hands. During this time, he made a living completely from his art.

He’s an example of the compelling characters who populate the hilltowns dotting the Connecticut River Valley, a place where privilege, poverty and place connect so acutely.

Bopping around with him to his current shows was like a peek into a network of rock crevices that don’t know they’re connected, each holding their wonders of moss and life. The Weathersfield Inn, with its stream of skiers from Okemo and Fodor’s-recommended restaurant, is, in reality, as connected to the fundamental mission of Arte Povera’s scuffed wall space and small backrooms reserved for figure-drawing class — which an exhibition of works by artists like Hearn makes clear. They simply want to keep Vermont thriving, from within, utilizing resources at hand.

“We serve local food, play local music and now show local artists,” Sandalman told me with an energetic smile, waving her hand over a blackboard with names of the local farms supplying her menu. “Isn’t it great,” she sighed as she held up a nail to O’Brien.

Like Hearn himself, it doesn’t get more salt-of-the-earth or creatively self-preserving than that.

“Sketches of Coastal Maine” runs at Weathersfield Inn (Route 106) until Feb. 27. “Layered Works” runs at Arte Povera (6 Park St.) until Feb. 4.

Clara Rose Thornton is a freelance cultural critic and arts journalist originally hailing from Chicago who now lives in an artists’ colony in Bellows Falls. She can be reached at clara@inkblotcomplex.com, or through her website, clararosethornton.com. Follow her at twitter.com/ClaraRose.