| VOLUME 6 | * * All Arts News On the Web * * | March 29 , 2002 |
ArtBits always features a calendar of the goings on of Franklin County artists. Check out these events around Franklin County. Each issue includes the entire text of our weekly newspaper column. STUFF YOU SHOULDN'T MISS
Stop in for the AAC CoffeeHouses at 7 p.m. on the second and fourth Wednesday of every month. These gatherings bring new opportunities, gossip, "show-and-tell" and workshops. We come together on the second Wednesday for a booked musical performance and an art exhibit at Simple Pleasures in St Albans. On the fourth Wednesday come to the Kept Writer in St Albans for acoustic Open Mike Night featuring music, readings, and more from the best new artists in Vermont.
Franklin County Industrial Development director Tim Smith usually thinks big, but this year he is planning a very, very small event. Tim is the former St Albans City Recreation Director responsible for such "Guinness" projects as the World's Largest pancake and the World's Largest ice cream sundae. THE MOST MINUSCULE PHILATELY
The new and eagerly anticipated Vermont Museum of Minute Stamps opens Sunday in St Albans.
"This is the grand opening for the world's smallest permanent gallery of substandard size postage stamps," Tim said. "Many of these stamps use Vermont artworks and were printed right here in Franklin County."
Few Vermonters are aware that the state maintains its own postal service. The Vermont Post Office, which celebrates an anniversary this weekend, has been in continuous operation since April 1, 1777. Although now restricted to moving mail among the state government offices, the Vermont Post Office has taken several bows on the international stage.
Early letter carriers earned no salaries but did receive 2 cents from each recipient of a delivered letter. Since the carriers had to supply the stamps (receipts) for the charges, these frugal Vermonters printed the smallest stamps possible. Early stamps carried only the chop of the carrier. Unwilling to pay for costly perforation, letter carriers scissored the stamps from the densely printed panels. The earliest stamp printer ran a small letterpress operation in a coal shed near the area that became the St Albans railroad tracks.
As our culture grew, Franklin County printers incorporated the wood-engraving technique using English boxwood, chosen for its density and hardness, to add heroic portraits to the stamps. By the mid-19th Century, American illustrators and genre painters such as David Gilmour Blythe created miniature satirical studies of everyday life for each stamp. Vermont stamps have appeared since in triangle, oval, circle, square, and free form shapes including one "large" 1 cm tall piece shaped as a map of Vermont.
By 1800, Vermont was the fastest growing state in the Union with an extensive mail service. In 1860, when St Albans began its rapid growth as a railroad hub, freight trains carried mail to letter carriers throughout the state. At the turn of this century, 23 parallel rail lines crossed Lake Street in the largest rail freight center East of Chicago.
Modeled after the St Albans system, the federal Railway Mail Service delivered most interstate mail until shortly after World War II but the end of Vermont Railway Mail came when Rural Free Delivery became permanent in 1896. That year also marked the end of the Vermont miniature illustrator stamp. The famed 1896 Railway Post in St Albans stamp, the last printed for the Vermont postal service, is included in the museum collection.
Tim Smith found several other strong artistic and historic connections to the Vermont post. Novelist Anthony Trollope became a clerk in the Vermont Post Office as a young man before he entered the civil service in England and may have begun his first novel, The MacDermots of Bally Coran, at the Highgate office. President Chester A. Arthur prosecuted bribe takers in the federal Post Office and attempted to model the national postage after Vermont's system. His support of Vermont stamps failed when Congress enacted the small stamp tariff act of 1883.
"Stamps are valued according to their rarity, condition, and size," Tim said of the local collection. The two-penny 1856 Allen E. Allen stamp brought $3,260,000 at a 1999 auction. The prior world record price was set in 1987 with the sale for $1.1 million of the Vermont two-cent "Lady McGill" stamp, rumored to have been named for letter carrier Allen Allen's Tory great-great-grandmother.
An anonymous patron bequeathed a dozen different 19th Century samples to the museum--these tiny receipts are stored in a single 2 cm square pochette. The collection also includes stamp-imprinted envelopes, first-day covers from each Vermont town, post cards, letter sheets, plate blocks, and complete panes of stamps as they came from the printer.
Because the exhibits are so small, the museum itself is housed in the new three-foot square granite structure in Taylor Park. Entry is restricted to one visitor at a time.
"Security is difficult and important since the stamps are easy to carry off and hard to keep from sticking to visitors," Tim said. "The vapor in a single breath can moisten the glue on over a dozen stamps." Tim has asked that all visitors to the museum on Sunday purchase special Tyvek suits ahead of their visit. The protective suits are available from the St Albans Chamber of Commerce and at the All Arts Council's Guggenheim North Museum.
The Vermont Museum of Minute Stamps will hold grand opening ceremonies on Sunday at 1 p.m. in Taylor Park. Admission is free. Dogs are mostly not welcome.
Despite the fact that this Sunday is also Anne's and my wedding anniversary, this column may convince you that your favorite arts columnist has licked a little too much glue. Rest assured that it is (almost) April 1 and you have been fooled.
STUFF YOU SHOULDN'T MISS
ST ALBANS--Folk singer Jim LaClair will perform at the Kept Writer Friday at 7 p.m. Jim began playing guitar in the 1960s folk boom. Heavily influenced by Joan Baez, Gordon Lightfoot, and Bob Dylan, he likes traditional folk with a topical message.
ST ALBANS--This Saturday marks the first of a series of traditional Franco-American Sessions at the Kept Writer Cafe and Bookshop in St Albans. Led by St Albans singer/songwriter and recording artist Michele Choiniere, the Kitchen Sessions will offer an intimate look at the music and laughter of a French-Canadian and Franco-Americaine kitchen soiree.
This week, Michele will be joined by her father, Fabio Choiniere, and other performers. They will introduce and perform traditional Franco-American music and songs, and will invite those present to participate.
The Kitchen Sessions are co-sponsored by the Opera House at Enosburg Falls and the All Arts Council of Franklin County. The teaching/learning/playing gathering will open at the Kept Writer, 5 Lake Street in St. Albans, on Saturday from 1-3 p.m. For more information, E-mail the All Arts Council or call the Opera House (802-933-6171) or the Kept Writer (802-527-6242).
HINESBURG--Richford artist Darla White is exhibiting 14 new works at the Gallery Upstairs. ART ON THE WALLS
"I do stories told by Vermonters and Vermont life in general," Darla said. She specializes in sports and hunting scenes and "anything that can go wrong with men in sports." The exhibit will continue through April.
The Franklin/Grand Isle Resource Directory lists nearly every community-based service and program for individuals and families in the two counties. These programs are one reason Northwestern Vermont is such a great place to live. The Directory began as a United Way project. "THEY'RE GONNA MAKE ME A STAR"
Starting today, Adelphia Channel 10 will broadcast Inside the Guide, a regular chance to meet some of the people behind the programs listed in the Resource Directory as well as others who volunteer for the fun stuff around our two counties. I am the host.
The first episode of Inside the Guide features United Way director Jeff Moreau. It will air tonight at 9:30 p.m. and again on Friday at 2:30 on Channel 10.
JEFFERSONVILLE--The Cambridge CoffeeHouse is closed for the month of April as Dinner's Dunn at the Windridge Bakery undergoes renovations. e-mail for info. COFFEEHOUSE NEWS
This year, we are wandering around the virtual state of Vermont to look at the online homes of arts organizations, galleries and artists, film and theater sites, and musicians. We have started with the Local Arts Service Organizations: CLICK HERE: ART SITE OF THE WEEK
Pentangle Council on the Arts in Woodstock is committed to keeping the arts alive through an Arts-in-Education program. They provide opportunities throughout the school year for Woodstock Elementary School students to experience the arts firsthand.
Because Pentangle has no site of its own, I also found six pages of "other" listings with a Google search.
ArtBits features a quick weekly peek at the bookshelf or night stand of the folks you know in and around Franklin County. That popular feature has a page of its own at the Franklin County Bookshelf here on the AAC site. FRANKLIN COUNTY BOOKSHELF
Dick Harper, Chair
P.O. Box 1
Highgate Springs, VT 05460
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This article was originally published in
the St Albans Messenger and other traditional print media. It is
Copyright © 2001 by Richard B. Harper. All rights reserved.
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