Sunday Sketchbook: Vermont
This week I attended a conference sponsored by the Council on the Future of Vermont. They've spent a year traveling the state, asking Vermonters to describe their hopes, worries and dreams for Vermont.
All of the artists in the "Art of Action" project were asked to attend, as we have based our work (including my "Elements of Place" paintings that you've been seeing here on this blog as they develop) on the work of the Council.
The report unveiled at the conference echoed my own hopes and fears for my adopted home state: how can we protect our small towns and farms from global economic pressures? Create the jobs that will keep our kids here? Against all odds, keep this place the dirt road, country store, cider and beer-swilling, hard-working, radical, conservative, tolerant, hayfield/cowbarn/garden-crazy place we love?
No one in the conference room had those answers, but sometimes just asking big questions is the most important step forward into the future.
The report unveiled at the conference echoed my own hopes and fears for my adopted home state: how can we protect our small towns and farms from global economic pressures? Create the jobs that will keep our kids here? Against all odds, keep this place the dirt road, country store, cider and beer-swilling, hard-working, radical, conservative, tolerant, hayfield/cowbarn/garden-crazy place we love?
No one in the conference room had those answers, but sometimes just asking big questions is the most important step forward into the future.