The Great Hall art space transforms former Fellows Gear Shaper plant

A new art showcase is opening this week at One Hundred River Street, the former Fellows Gear Shaper plant in Springfield.
http://www.rutlandherald.com/article/20120718/NEWS02/707189895

There is a new public art showcase at the Fellows Gear Shaper Co. in Springfield. The Great Hall opens Friday with its inaugural show, “Emergence,” a combination of traditional and cutting-edge paintings, innovative sculpture and mobiles, pottery and even tapestry. Photo: PROVIDEDPHOTOS Published July 18, 2012 in the Rutland Herald The Great Hall art space transforms former Fellows Gear Shaper plant By SUSAN SMALLHEER Staff Writer SPRINGFIELD — One hundred years ago, workers at the Fellows Gear Shaper Co. limited their painting to sprucing up their precision machines that were shipped all over the country. But now, there is a new public art showcase in the former machine tool complex, which has been renovated in the past 18 months to house doctors’ offices, a health center, and hopefully a mix of uses in the old building on the banks of the Black River. The Great Hall opens Friday with its inaugural show, “Emergence,” a combination of traditional and cutting-edge paintings, innovative sculpture and mobiles, pottery and even tapestry, said Nina Jamison of Springfield, the coordinator for the Great Hall. Jamison hoped that the similarities between the Great Hall and another, famous art gallery in a former industrial building, Mass MOCA in Adams, Mass., isn’t lost on people on the New England art trail. The art gallery, which is located at the western entrance to the renovated building, features soaring ceilings, clerestory windows and big wall space – a boon to artists who like to think big. In fact, Jamison describes the show as “tapestry, sculpture and paintings on a grand scale.” Jamison said that she and Melody Reed, the executive director of the Gallery at the VAULT, were on a tour of the building with the new owners many months ago and she felt it was the perfect place for art. “I was inspired by contrasting images of both a gothic church with clerestory windows and one of the sprawling, gritty workrooms of the former industrial factory,” said Jamison. The building had seen better days, and until the new owners of One Hundred River Street LLC had taken over the former industrial building on the banks of the Black River, it had a mixed second life as an incubator for new companies. That effort eventually failed, making way for One Hundred River Street. Last week, the transformation was all but complete. Artists came in and hung their work in advance of the show’s opening. On Friday, a group of weavers – all members of Tapestry Weavers in New England, or TWiNE — an artists’ organization — hung their tapestries, which range in content from social commentary to landscape to Navajo-inspired abstract. Suzanne Pretty of Farmington, N.H., said it was space that intrigued her to show her large tapestries. Pretty said her work juxtaposes the pastoral with scene of destruction, including one with a bulldozer superimposed on a field of orange daylilies. “It shows the environmental fragmentation of the landscape,” she said. Eve Pearce of Bennington translated a trip to Nepal to two large tapestries, one of a landscape of Mustangi village with prayer flags, and another of four girls and an apple, also from Nepal. Jamison said the owners of One Hundred River Street, as the Gear Shaper complex is now known, Rick Genderson and John Meekin, were completely supportive of the idea of a public art showcase in their building. Genderson, a Washington, D.C., businessman, said that it was a combination of a “beautiful old building on a beautiful river with an exceptional space.” Artists who are part of the Emergence show include painters Rick Hearn of Springfield, Scot Borofsky of Brattleboro, Robert Carsten of Springfield, Robert O’Brien of Weathersfield, large-scale potter Stephen Procter of Brattleboro, sculptor Oliver Schemm of Saxtons River, sculptor Carolyn Enz Hack of Thetford, sculptor Patty Sgrecci and the TWiNE Guild, which includes Betsy Wing of Hartland, Eve S. Pearce, Priscilla May Alden of East Boothbay, Me., Sarah Robbins Warren of Jefferson, N.H., and Pretty. The building, which is located just north of the downtown area, had, along with Jones & Lamson Machine Co., and Bryant Grinder Co., put Springfield on the industrial map during the 20th century, before falling prey to cheap industrial imports from Japan and Germany. Where once thousands of people were employed at Gear Shaper and the other companies, now only about 200 people work in the machine tool industry in Springfield. Springfield was so important to the industrial business of the country, it landed on the Top 10 list of potential bombing targets by Germany during World War II. And the gallery will also have a section set aside to the history of the building and its place in Springfield and Vermont’s history, with special docents on hand during the exhibit to talk about Fellows Gear Shaper, which was simply called “Gear Shaper” by decades of Springfield residents. “History and art shown together is a powerful presentation. It has the potential to inform, excite and heal,” said Jamison, who has already had one substantial art success in Springfield at the Gallery at the VAULT, a Vermont state craft center and art gallery. Docents will be on hand during the month of August to talk about the building and Fellows, Jamison said. Henry Swierczynski will be there on Thursdays from 12 p.m. To 4 p.m., Don Whitney will be there on Fridays, 12 to 4 p.m. and Walter Pluss, Saturday, 12 to 4 p.m. All are retired longtime Fellows’ employees. The inaugural show will run until Nov. 2. An exhibit featuring Vermont artist Sabra Field will open in early November. The public is invited to the opening reception on Friday, 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m., with refreshments.