Notes from Alexis Smith, Curatrix, and Jerome Lipani.
Current and Upcoming Exhibitions
The 50th Anniversary Group Show: The exhibition is coming to an end! We want to thank all the participating artists for their beautiful artwork, and invite you to come and pick up your pieces before the end of April. Please confirm your pick up plans with me at VTpiegirlco@gmail.com or Jeromelipani@gmail.com.
Upcoming Exhibition: We are looking forward to hosting Peter Schumann in an anti-war giant painted bedsheet exhibition and performance celebrating his 90th birthday and the 50+ years of Bread & Puppet at the Community Center.
As the Co-op transitions to its new location (Plainfield Hardware) we want to recognize the 50 years of service to the community that the Co-op and Community Center have provided. Our Community Center has been a gathering place, arts center, educational venue, event center, meeting space, dance hall, party central, kids space, endless incarnations of the Free Store, political and social hub, free wifi workspace, art gallery, grand piano and music concert hall; class space for yoga, meditation, cooking, dance, theater, child care, self-care, kettle ball, exercise, sustainability, permaculture, nutrition, pot lucks, tag sales, fund raisers, Co-op meetings and gatherings, and so much more!
The Co-op will continue to own its present building for another three years, and the Board would like to convene community conversations about its use. Stay tuned for an announcement as they work out the details. Your energy and ideas are welcome as we look to generate possibilities for the future, including accessibility and non-profit status.
If you are interested in using the Community Center or finding out what’s going on, check out the calendar and rental information on the Plainfield Co-op website at plainfieldcoop.com/community-center/.
Call for Spring Cleaning Fairies
Looking for any self-motivated individuals to help clean the Plainfield Community Center and spruce it up for spring. Here are the areas and jobs in desperate need of attention:
- Stairs: Dust stairwell, vacuum stairs, wash window.
- Landing: Clear out the donated items currently dropped there, and vacuum.
- The Free Store/Lobby: Ruthlessly eliminate all donated items that are unlikely to be “adopted” (out of season, unmatched, broken, dirty, unusable). Dust all surfaces, wash windows, vacuum and mop floor, empty trash and recycling.
- The “Big Space”: Dust, vacuum and mop floor, wash windows.
- Emergency Exit: Sweep the stairs, clear and rake the walkway around the building.
There are very few tools or supplies for these jobs. Please bring your own weapons: rake, broom, vacuum cleaner, rags, dusters, windex, floor soap, mop, mop bucket, paper towels, trash bags, elbow grease.
Contacts: Alexis Smith VtPieGirlCo@gmail.com, Leah Tedesco membership@plainfieldcoop.com
Jerome Lipani’s Exhibit
Here is the link to view Jerome Lipani’s PCC exhibit in 2022, which few people could see because of the pandemic. It is but one example of the creative work the PCC has exhibited over many years. Video: https://youtu.be/6QcK-PsX1hY; stills from the video shown below
Filmed on an i-Phone 7 plus by Tamar Schumann, this Virtual Tour attempts to integrate in a very real way the elements of improvisation in painting and in music. Jerome Lipani exhibits a never-before seen series from the 2010’s in exploration of the legacy of the Bauhaus, left to us by Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee and Walter Gropius, in his attempt to follow the thread of their philosophical and culturally analytical search as mid-20th Century artist/innovators. Beginning with the use of a chime sculpture created from found-object steel plates of graduated sizes, played with stick mallets found in various beaver dams, Lipani explores the awakening tonal capacities that these remnants of industrialization are able to reveal melodically and sonically. From his Cabot, Vermont home on September 11, 2022, we are brought to the nearby Plainfield Community Center Gallery, where his Visual Fugue/AnalyticalAbstraction Assemblage Show has been hanging pandemic-long, with almost no one able to see it. The film ends with an Allegria piano improv played to the score of one of his abstract paintings.