World Challenges & Wooden Wonders

Two New Exhibits

WORLD CHALLENGES

World Challenges is an intimate look at the consequences of climate change, war, and violence.

The exhibit was initiated by Vermont timber historian and wood carver Chuck Herrmann of Shoreham, Vermont, whose grandson Sam Herrmann, while studying climate change at Lake Forest College in Illinois, alerted his grandfather to deteriorating conditions in the Arctic.  For two years Herrmann created the colorful white pine triptych backdrop of varying shades of blue and white and inventive interpretations of melting and jagged ice with Arctic animals.

Floating and flying amidst the ice formations are Herrmann’s  basswood carvings of Arctic creatures –Polar Bear, Blue Whale (estimated to have been in existence 23 – 33 billion years ago), Sperm Whale, Beluga Whale, Greenland Halibut, Greenland Shark, Arctic Tern, Bearded Seal, and Narwhal (known for its large "tusk" from a protruding canine tooth).

Middlebury artist Sarah Ashe has created a miniature artistic testament to her ongoing concerns about the refugee situation brought on by war, violence, and poverty.  Using paper sculpture techniques and found materials, she searches for understanding and solutions to alleviate the suffering brought on by these calamities. Cognizant that over 60 million individuals are currently displaced worldwide, of which nearly 20 million are refugees, half of whom are children, with almost 6.6 million refugees from Syria alone, she has fashioned these sculptures.

Central to her presentation are small-scale replicas of the overcrowded vessels traversing hazardous seas between Africa and Europe, which often capsize resulting in multiple drownings.  Closer to home, are Sarah Ashe’s depictions of immigrants going overland from Central America and Mexico to the United States. The work also includes miniature scenes of the tent city camps where the refugees are housed in usually deplorable conditions.

New Haven, Vermont, textile collector Sansea Sparling was introduced to Syria over a decade ago on a tour led by Deborah Harte Felmeth of Waltham, Vermont, and her Syrian-native husband.  Felmeth is the author of Syria: Remember Me, a book of photo essays.  During her tour, Sparling quickly fell in love with the vibrant Syrian textiles.

Selections from Sparling’s collection constitute the third section of the World Challenges exhibit.  Contemporary news accounts describe those that escape Syria and those that remain in bombed-out former commercial hubs.  Amongst the destruction is the Syrian textile industry and craft culture – factories have been decimated and the workforce has been depleted. Aleppo, once a center of textiles, has been ravaged by the fighting between government and rebel forces.  Textile machines that were not destroyed have been stolen.  Sparling’s offerings are vivid reminders of the once-thriving textile artists.

World Challenges offers a stunning view of contemporary artistic interpretations by Vermonters of issues that unite and divide our nation and the world.  In the aftermath of a closely followed and divisive presidential campaign, the exhibit summons us to seek solutions. Visitors are encouraged to share their responses to these issues and the art work in the exhibit journal.

World Challenges

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Wooden Wonders

The Wooden Wonders exhibit featured several displays of Vermont forestry and woodworking, including historic wooden toys, preserved wood, logging and hewing tools, interactive display tables, and more!

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IN CHAMPLAIN’S WAKE

STUDENT PROJECT

PATRICIA A. HANNAFORD CAREER CENTER

HENRY SHELDON MUSEUM OF VERMONT HISTORY

During the fall semester 2016, a high school class of eight students from Addison County’s   Patricia A. Hannaford Career Center studied the history of muskrat trapping in the Lake Champlain Region, specifically the trapping boat used by Gerald Hatch of Panton, Vermont in Dead Creek.  Under the guidance of boat historian Douglas Brooks and Jake Burnham, head of Hannaford’s STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) education classroom.

The students were tasked with thoroughly documenting the historic Hatch family trapping boat through measurements, photographs and narrative evaluation. They accurately measured the shape of the boat (a process called lines-taking), then drawing the boat full-size in three views (lofting). The lofted lines of the boat in profile, plan, and section views reconciled discrepancies in the measurements and created the best facsimile of the shape of the boat as originally built.

Lines-taking and lofting formed the basis for the students’ work drawing the boat on the computer using CAD (computer aided design). In addition to the lines drawings,  students were able to derive from the lofting and direct measurement other construction details of the boat, such as the cross-section of the stem rabbet, plank bevels, scantlings (sizes and species of parts), and mold shapes, all critical pieces of information for a comprehensive documentation of the boat. The final result is a comprehensive set of plans for a traditional Lake Champlain boat type, a thorough documentation providing all the information necessary for a competent woodworker to build the boat.

The students then set to work building replicas of the boat. They were introduced to hand tools and traditional boatbuilding techniques, and exposed to a wide variety of problem-solving tasks in the course of construction. The project culminated with a launching on Otter Creek behind the school.

We congratulate the eight students in the 2016 class and we thank instructors Douglas Brooks and Jake Burnham, as well as the Hatch family.

Sam Chamberlain, Middlebury Union High School

Keion Correll, Mt. Abraham Union High School

Henry Dora, Middlebury Union High School

Andrew Gosselin, Middlebury Union High School

Robert Poppenga, Middlebury Union High School

Andrew Raymond, Mt. Abraham Union High School

Nick Scott, Middlebury Union High School

Will Wormer, Vergennes Union High School

We thank the following funders who made the project and this exhibit possible: the Henry Sheldon Museum; the Bay & Paul Foundation; the Regatta for Lake Champlain; and Jim Bullard.