Ric Kasini Kadour’s editorial in Vermont Art Guide #1 is an essay about why Vermont art is important and what it offers us as a community. The essay is also a raison d’etre for the magazine. To read the full editorial, purchase Vermont Art Guide #1 or SUBSCRIBE.

This magazine is a love letter.

Art used to play a greater role in society than it does today. A few years ago, I became interested in the question, Why does art matter less today? I was inspired by the story of Alejandro Otero whose exhibition at Museo de Bellas Artes in Caracas in 1949 caused a social uproar and almost single handedly brought Modernism to Venezuela. I was interested to know what prompted Tony Shafrazi to spray paint “KILL LIES ALL” on Picasso’s Guernica at New York City’s Museum of Modern Art in 1974. Or why people viewing Mark Rothko paintings are moved to tears. And in a similar way, I am curious why once a year, a story about a janitor accidentally throwing out a work of contemporary art makes the rounds; how contemporary art became an ongoing gag used in television sitcoms. Why is our society so disconnected from art?

Art is the mycelium of humanity, those sprawling fungal roots that bind the soil and keep us connected to one another.

And those times when I believe our society’s relationship to contemporary art is irrevocably broken, I return my thinking to Vermont. I think about the gallery in the Northeast Kingdom where you can peek through the old grist mill and look at the river underneath. I think about Carol MacDonald’s studio, perched above the Winooski River, and her monoprints exploring her role as a woman, daughter, mother, and artist. I think about Janet Van Fleet in her studio in Barre toiling away on wonky wood sculptures that parade humanity around the gallery floor. I think of Alex Costantino and Blake Larsen collaborating on paintings at S.P.A.C.E. in Burlington. I think of the Northern Vermont Artist Association, the Vermont Pastel Society, the Paletteers in Barre, and dozens of other groups and collectives that come together to push their art out in the world. I think of standing underneath a Karen Petersen horse sculpture at West Branch Gallery & Sculpture Park in Stowe. I remember seeing a painting of Farr Cross Road by Tad Spurgeon and getting the same feelings of awe and wonder I get when I drive down Route 22a on a foggy, misty morning. And I think how Vermont art can make me angry and sad and excited and full of joy. Vermont has given us so much over the years, this magazine is our way of giving back.

To read the full editorial, purchase Vermont Art Guide #1 or SUBSCRIBE.

Your thoughts and reflections on the ideas behind Vermont Art Guide are appreciated. Feel free to send us an email.

We hope you will join us.

I have worked and followed Vermont art for over fifteen years now. In preparing to launch the Vermont Art Guide, we organized various files we’ve amassed working in with Vermont art venues and artists. We found over 500 places to see art in the state and we have files on over 1200 Vermont artists. We wish we could put them all in the first issue, but we can’t. This magazine is going to be an adventure. We hope you share it with us. We invite you to share with us your experience of Vermont art, your life as an artist, or your drive to show art in your space. We encourage you to visit the other side of the mountain, to drive to the other end of the state, to seek out a place you’ve never been before. And we hope you will subscribe to this magazine. It’s success and longevity depends on you joining a community of people interested and enthusiastic about Vermont art.