Rx for a Successful Farmers Market

The Art of Agriculture continues on Friday, June 29, at 7:30 p.m. with a discussion led by Jessie Schmidt, coordinator for community and agriculture programs with UVM Extension. Jessie will talk about the challenges faced by rural farmers' markets and the factors that promote their long-term success. She'll also touch on other buy-local options relevant to the Randolph area. Free and open to the public. Come be part of the discussion about small-scale agriculture in our community.

The Art of Travel: Fiesole, Italy

Testa Etrusca

In 1969, after a year of living in Paris, I moved to Florence, Italy, where I got a job teaching English. I rented an apartment in Fiesole, a nearby Etruscan hill village. The next eight months were among the most pleasant of my life. Each morning I would ride my Vespa down into Florence. Each afternoon I would return to Fiesole to stroll through the Roman ruins behind the village, visit my friend the librarian at the Franciscan monastery, or read la Divina Commedia at a café under the lime trees. When I left to return to the United States, my landlady gave me this sculpture of a woman's head. She told me she had found it in the fields around Fiesole when she was a girl, and that it was Etruscan. —Tom Cooch

Tom Cooch, right, at the opening of the Art of Travel.

The Art of Travel, featuring photographs by Wink Willett, watercolors by Bonny Willet, sketchbooks by Susan Abbott and Paul Calter, and souvenirs collected by local globetrotters, is on view until July 20.

An Evening with Club de la Grenouille

A post card collage from a bicycle trip of Holland . . . 

A signed bottle of artisanal tequila . . . 

. . . made by Eliseo Gomez of Oaxaca.

And a man's carry-all from Guatemala . . . 

These were some of the artifacts gleaned . . . 

During a gathering of Club de la Grenouille . . . 

On the eve of the opening of "The Art of Travel" . . .

The Art of Travel: Opening Reception June 8

Girl With Blue Shawl, photograph by Wink Willett

Join us this Friday from 5 to 7 for the opening of The Art of Travel. The exhibit will feature photographs and paintings by Wink and Bonny Willett, reproductions from artist Susan Abbott's travel sketchbooks, and travel souvenirs collected by local globetrotters. We'll display some of the artifacts and put others on the blog, so check back often during the next six weeks to see what turns up. We'll also be scheduling some fun travel-related evenings at the gallery, including a presentation by Karen Kane, a travel consultant who specializes in Paris and Montreal, and a talk with some of the Facebook friends who organized Sara's trip to Paris for Condé Nast Traveler in May.

The Art of Agriculture

Great energy in the room on Friday when some 20 people turned out to hear Fat Toad Farm interns Melissa Hayashida, Lily Baker, and Elisa Mayes explain what drew them to farming as a vocation. Answers ranged from "didn't want to spend my life behind a desk," to "I picked up Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and couldn't put it down," to "I was hooked from the time I visited my first CSA farm when I was eight." Passion, in a word. Other young farmers in the room shared similar stories. For Chip Natvig, owner of Pebble Brook Farm in Brookfield, it was the smell of his grandfather's greenhouse that turned him on. Natvig, who had "zero dollars" to invest as a beginning farmer, got his start with help from retired farmers and "an awesome business plan" that he crafted in the Vermont Farm Viability Enhancement Program. Andrew Stowe, the new manager of Highfields Farm in Randolph, also stressed the importance of business training. All portrayed Vermont as a supportive environment for beginning farmers. The interns, who come from California, Minnesota, and North Carolina, picked Fat Toad Farm out of a variety of internships offered on a list-serve called Good Food Jobs ("satisfying the hunger for meaningful work"). Among the reasons they gave for their choice were the chance to work with livestock, the farm's New England location, its effective marketing and publicity materials, and above all, the high quality of its internship program.

Quote of the Day: How to Look at Art

Gillianchicago for Creative Commons

From art dealer Michael Findley, interviewed by Brian Boucher in the current issue of Art in America: “I teach a course at Christie's, and the students are told to look at a work of art for 15 minutes. Those who do five or 10 are doing well. I suggest it as a way of being extreme. The Louvre has clocked the average viewer at 10 seconds. If you come in somewhere over 10 seconds and under an hour, you're doing a pretty good job. An hour spent looking at one or a couple of pictures is more worthwhile than trudging around a museum until you're bleary-eyed, footsore and thirsty. I think we spend more time reading a novel or seeing a movie, and a work of art shouldn't be given such short thrift.”  Findley is the author of The Value of Art, due out from Prestel this month.

Artist's Reception at Korongo Today

Tree Line, acrylic on canvas, 24x32

Hardwick artist Marie LaPré Grabon has been painting the Vermont landscape for over 30 years. She writes: “As we humans push the land to the brink of disaster, I have begun to think of my paintings as small prayers, small pleas to the world to remember, to love.” "Love Songs," an exhibit of her work, runs through June 3. Join us today for the opening reception from 5 to 7 pm. Hors d'oeuvres by Black Krim Tavern, our neighbors on Merchants Row.