Grand slam For Sanders’ fourth and final term as mayor, Hewitt chose a different theme for his poster: baseball. The poster suggested that the mayor could hit a “grand slam” of accomplishments if voters returned him to office. It also reminded voters that Sanders’ dogged pursuit of a professional minorleague baseball team paid off. The Double-A team, initially dubbed Vermont Reds, began playing in the city in 1984. Sanders garnered 55 percent of the vote against a Democratic challenger.
Bernie = Burlington When Sanders ran a third time for Burlington’s top job, Hewitt’s poster featured a classic image of the mayor with a mic, hand raised to make a point. Sanders won reelection with 56 percent of the vote, again in a threeway contest.
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Hewitt kept it simple when he created the 1990 poster for Sanders’ second attempt to win the state’s sole seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. Just the candidate’s name appeared — first, of course — followed by a map of Vermont and a declaration of his independence. After six unsuccessful runs for various statewide offices, Sanders secured the Congressional seat in a four-way race, with 56 percent of the vote.
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Kraft, who also owns several of the ’80s Bernie posters, described them as bold political statements done by an artist in a playful, creative style. The second and third mayoral posters reminded voters of Sanders’ commitment to the city with the slogan “Bernie for Burlington.” As Sanders sought a fourth term, Hewitt’s poster celebrated his accomplishments with a baseball analogy: “a grand slam for Burlington.” The poster also reminded Burlington voters that Sanders had brought a Double-A minor-league baseball team to the city. Hewitt created a fifth poster in 1990, when Sanders made his second run for Vermont’s sole seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. His win launched a 25-year (and counting) career in Washington, D.C., that Sanders is now hoping to top with a move to the White House. Art is part of that effort, too. Artists such as Richard J Oliver and dug Nap have already contributed pieces to Sanders’ presidential campaign that will be printed as limited editions. “We have a policy that explains what we can accept from artists,” said Michael Briggs, campaign communications director. The prints by Oliver, Nap and other artists will be displayed in shows around the country and then auctioned, he added. The maximum price for an artwork will be $2,700, the limit on an individual campaign donation. Back in Burlington, the possessors of Sanders’ early political posters cherish them all the more now that he is on the national stage, Kraft said. “There are people who would like to collect these things right now,” she noted, “because Bernie is very cool and Frank’s work has currency.”
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of a smiling Sanders and the instruction to “Vote Sanders for Mayor.” Patterson had a screen-printing setup in the basement of his home in Winooski, he recalled. So Hewitt came over with a stack of positive films. “We Scotch-taped them together into the composition,” Patterson explained. “We exposed a stencil film with a sun lamp shining through our taped-up master and pulled a few dozen prints. “Then Frank worked into the still-soft ink on most of the prints with thinner and a brush, creating the soft, washy effects,” he added. That made each print unique. Sanders, of course, won that historic 1981 race — and he was reelected three times. For his subsequent campaign posters, Patterson said he helped Hewitt put together the film images for the masters, but they were printed commercially. Doreen Kraft, executive director of Burlington City Arts, said Hewitt saw art as a communication tool and a way to build community. “Bernie’s election, to him, was very significant,” she said. One of Sanders’ first moves as mayor was to set up a volunteer arts task force, and Hewitt was one of the original members. The group, which became known as the Mayor’s Arts Council, “turned the lobby of city hall into a gallery,” Kraft remembered. It also established a Thursday-night summer concert series in Battery Park, for which Hewitt created an image depicting a vivid pink sunset over Lake Champlain. (In 1983, the Burlington City Council voted to fund the arts group and hired Kraft as a part-time coordinator; seven years later, it would evolve into Burlington City Arts.)