home design real estate
SUMMER 2020
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Sustainable tiny modules suited to social distancing
The virtual reality of pandemic real estate
The movement toward more garden, less lawn
Quarantined artists get creative with home studios
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This issue of Nest was conceived, assigned and written with Vermont’s stay-athome mandate in mind. We interview artists who abandoned studios for smaller work spaces at home. We explore the trend to front yard gardening (who needs grass?). We learn about virtual real estate. And we meet a designer who makes portable, and adorable, “tiny modules.” Though the pandemic is still with us, seismic events of the past few weeks have shifted, again, our thinking about where and how we live. It must be said that having a house and perhaps a garden and the means to support them is a privilege. And it is past time, as social justice protesters rightly say, to work for a collective home that is safe and just for all.
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Up Front Gardening ................12 Urban and suburban dwellers reimagine the lawn
OUR SUMMER DECOR INSPIRATION
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How quarantined artists make it work BY PA ME L A P O L ST O N
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Up End This Orbiter module at Shelburne Farms PHOTO BY LEIGH CAMPBEL
6 Sustainable tiny modules suited to social distancing
10 The virtual reality of pandemic real estate
12 The movement toward more garden, less lawn
16 Quarantined artists get creative with home studios
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Mod Pods Johnson-based Up End This creates tiny, portable and sustainable Satellites BY A M Y L I L LY
PHOTOS COURTESY OF LEIGH CAMPBEL
Early this month, a U-Haul truck pulling a small, rectangular, flat-roofed building on a homemade trailer parked in front of the stunning lake view at Shelburne Farms. It was a perfect spot for a photo shoot, even if rain clouds threatened. The structure’s designer and chief builder, Michael Zebrowski, and a helper jumped out and started fitting the module with a deck, pulling pre-sized components from the truck. Another helper furnished the interior with a rug, two chairs, a Japanese-style box shelving unit, an electric kettle and a few works of art. A passerby stopped to ask, “What are you building?” “Tiny modules,” Zebrowski answered, smiling broadly. The yellow trucker hat he wore bore the logo of his new company, Up End This. Zebrowski calls these structures Satellites. The company’s website describes them as “modular, nomadic, relocatable architectural products.” Up End This offers five different models, from the Escape Pod, which has an 8-by-6-foot floor plan, to the Habitation Top photo: Kim Marie Glynn with her newly purchased Orbiter. Above: Inside the Orbiter
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Visiting friends AND your mortgage lender might look different now but it's still possible.
ARC HIT EC T U RE Module, which is a streamlined version of a tiny house. The one parked at Shelburne Farms was the Orbiter, which measures 8 by 10 feet. It represents Zebrowski’s first Satellite sale. He is, in fact, launching his company during a pandemic. That may seem risky, but the architecture-trained designer is gambling that the necessity of social distancing actually creates more uses for his products. Need a Zoom room away from the kids? A backyard office that can turn mobile for telecommuting while you travel? A portable barbershop, or a micro café? How about an Airbnb suite for extra income? “It’s really meant to be a blank slate,” Zebrowski said during an earlier phone call from his Johnson home. While he was building the Orbiter, he added, his 7- and 5-year-old children suggested another use: “Daddy, can this be our play space?”
construction, a Satellite’s walls can easily be unbolted and replaced with, for example, a wall of windows. The structures’ light environmental footprint is evident in other ways. Interior heat comes from passive solar, through windows made not from glass but from a type of corrugated plastic typically used in greenhouses. (Buyers can also opt for a radiant floor.) Ventilation happens naturally, with windows positioned to pull in cool air at floor level and let out hot air above. Built-in electrical wiring can be powered with solar panels (an add-on) or an extension cord run from a main house. The Habitation Module will have a composting toilet. All models facilitate rooftop water collection. Zebrowski is keeping his modules affordable by taking a page from the auto industry. Satellite base models for each module range from $6,200 to $14,400;
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The name of Zebrowski’s company, which reverses the ubiquitous “This End Up” label on shipping boxes, is oddly in keeping with these upended pandemic times. In fact, the designer conceived of his new enterprise back in 2017 while preoccupied with another disaster: climate change. “The thought was, How are we going to live in a place that feels like it’s been turned upside down?” he explained. Satellites are designed to address concerns about sustainability. While the market is flooded with mod-looking prefab sheds that can serve as backyard offices or yoga studios, most require permanent installation. Up End This products can come three ways: permanently mounted on a wheeled trailer bed; purchased with a trailer that can come on or off; or installed using four corner stilts. Because of its space-frame
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a fully loaded Habitation Module costs $51,000. All can be customized with the company’s easily installed “crates” — office, kitchen, storage and other premade add-on units. Kim Marie Glynn is Up End This’ first customer. She showed up at Shelburne Farms to see the Orbiter that would be placed on her property later that day. “It’s beautiful!” she exclaimed. Glynn lives in a cooperative mobilehome park in Shelburne in a tiny house she purchased three years ago. Shelburne zoning requires that her Satellite be trailer-mounted. She plans to use it as an artist’s studio: She makes collages and other art from recycled materials, which can pile up. For winter use, Glynn asked Zebrowski to insulate MOD PODS
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AR CHI T ECT UR E
Inside the Orbiter Module
Mod Pods « P.7 the walls and ceiling; she’ll also install a stick-burning stove called a Cubic Mini. Looking at the white-painted box with yellow-framed windows and door, Glynn explained her attraction to Zebrowski’s product. First, the Orbiter is made almost entirely from recycled materials, which give it a distinctly DIY look that fits her lifestyle. “I love that it collects rainwater,” she said, pointing to a spout emerging from one side of the roof. With that she can water her garden; she intends to invest in a green-cone composter next. “[Zebrowski] has a similar philosophy of life that I want to support — people doing things for the Earth,” Glynn said. Zebrowski, who earned a master’s in architecture from the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan, moved to Vermont in 2014 to teach sculpture and 3D art at what was then called Johnson State College. He was soon showing his own architecturally based artwork in exhibitions including “Exposed,” Stowe’s annual outdoor sculpture show, and “Of Land and Local” at Shelburne Farms. One example: “Observatory,” a long, narrow, roofless structure installed on Lone Tree Hill at Shelburne Farms, framed an idyllic slice of the view across Lake Champlain to the Adirondack Mountains. Zebrowski said his business is driven by the same goal as his public art: environmental awareness. “I was always interested in building things that allowed people to see where and when they were,” he commented. He chose yellow as his company’s signature color partly to highlight that awareness. “It comes out of caution about how you use resources,” Zebrowski said. “But it’s also just joyful — the idea of a bright, sunny space.” That outlook unites the Up End This team, which includes five of Zebrowski’s former students. One is Lily Johnson, the company’s media manager, who works remotely from Portland, Ore. “We all value the same thing — sustainability,” said Johnson, who graduated from Johnson State in 2017. She interned at Zebrowski’s now-defunct Center for Public Art and served as a gallerist when he ran the college’s Julian Scott Memorial Gallery. “I feel like Vermont is one of those 8
NEST SUMMER 2020
WE ALL VALUE THE SAME THING — SUSTAINABILITY. L ILY J O H NS O N
states that’s really thinking green,” Johnson declared. “[It has] the whole DIY, living-off-grid mentality.” Part of Johnson’s job is to spread narratives on social media about how one might use a Satellite. “This doesn’t have to be a house,” she pointed out. “If you’re a musician and you don’t have space or money to renovate your basement, you just put your music studio in a Satellite.” For Burlington residents, such scenarios became more attainable in mid-February 2020, when the city instituted an ordinance change making it easier to install an accessory dwelling unit. The changes streamlined the permitting process for adding an ADU to a property, eliminated the requirement for a parking space and increased allowed square footage. (However, fire code requires that ADUs have a sprinkler system if they are more than 50 feet from the street.) That was “a real game changer,” according to Michael Metz, chair of the development committee for Generator maker space in Burlington. Metz helped select Zebrowski for the 2020 cohort of JumpStart, an entrepreneurial boot camp for budding businesses centered on a physical prototype. A collaboration of Generator and the Lake Champlain Regional Chamber of Commerce, the program is designed to make winners competitive for the chamber’s more advanced LaunchVT award. Zebrowski used his three-month residency at Generator to create the Orbiter prototype, which he then modified for Glynn. Now that it’s easier to install an ADU, Metz pointed out, Satellites make a lot of sense. “It means you can buy one of these and rent it out. [Or] it can be used as an additional housing unit, and we have a bit of a problem with housing costs [in Burlington]. And, personally, I think remote working is here to stay.” Zebrowski acknowledged the challenge of starting a business in 2020. “But I really do believe that we’re offering something that’s about this moment in our time,” he said. “And, might we be one of the companies that actually shows growth?” m Contact: lilly@sevendaysvt.com
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SeeingIs Believing
“We decided to buy a house during COVID-19. That was a crazy thing,” Ryan said by phone a week before their move in mid-May. “We were a little hesitant. It would be crazy not to be. Vermont is 953 miles away.” After the Logans told their Vermont agent, Kathy O’Brien of Four Seasons Sotheby’s International Realty, their requirements and budget, she jumped into action — or as much as she was allowed to. “I would drive into neighborhoods and FaceTime them,” O’Brien said of her house hunters. The agent couldn’t enter people’s homes, so she showed the Logans eight houses from the outside. When a house in Milton popped up on the Multiple Listing Service at the end of March, the couple was in luck: A contract on it had just fallen through, but the buyers who had backed out had already completed an inspection — another aspect of home buying that had become impossible during the pandemic shutdown. 10
NEST SUMMER 2020
Again, technology filled the void. “The owner did little 30-second iPhone videos of the interior, sent them to me, and I strung them together and sent it to Ryan and Linda,” O’Brien explained. Linda immediately identified with the newly redone interiors: “I love the interior design. Being from the West, [I think] it has a very Utah-Colorado feeling,” she said during a phone call. Based solely on the video images and a summary of the building inspection, the Logans put in a bid within four hours of “seeing” the place, and they got it. The novel coronavirus forced Vermont’s traditional real estate industry to shut down for five weeks, starting in mid-March, but buyers and sellers who had to move quickly pivoted to virtual ways of facilitating property transactions. These methods — particularly video and 3D tours — may have a lasting effect on the industry. While virtual tours were occasionally available on real estate websites before the pandemic, they’ve become more
B Y A M Y L I L LY
TIM NEWCOMB
Linda and Ryan Logan, a West Virginia-based couple in their late twenties, had no choice but to move during the pandemic. Ryan, who works in information technology, can do his job from anywhere, but Linda was completing her medical school degree and had matched at the University of Vermont for a residency in pathology that would begin on June 12. They needed to buy their first house in a state where Gov. Phil Scott’s “Stay Home, Stay Safe” order meant they had to purchase sight unseen.
The real estate industry adapts to virtual transactions
sophisticated and practically de rigueur, making virtual buying and selling more accessible than ever. Steve Lipkin, the Realtor-broker who leads the Lipkin Audette Team at Coldwell Banker Hickok & Boardman, said that while “a few” of the agency’s listed properties had Zillow 3D tours before the pandemic, now most of them do. As soon as the governor first relaxed restrictions on real estate transactions on April 20, allowing single agents to enter houses on the market, the team bought an extra camera to create more Zillow tours. The technology involves setting the camera on a tripod in the middle of each room, where it takes two 180-degree photos that are later stitched together. At the same time, Lipkin added, “We were teaching sellers how to do videos and send those to us: Make sure you hold your iPhone vertically, don’t shake, and so on.” O’Brien, a real estate agent for 26 years, previously used a wedding videographer and acted as director on the occasional pre-pandemic video — including one in which she had the owner play guitar while sitting in his hammock.
Now, each property O’Brien represents is listed with professionally produced videos and a Matterport 3D tour. “Before the pandemic, I might have gotten 200 views [of a video] over three months. Now we’ll get 200 views in two weeks, because people are at home and their world just changed,” O’Brien commented. “I think video is the wave of the future.” Jessica Bridge, co-owner of and principal broker at Element Real Estate, pointed out that agencies are investing in virtual tours for another reason. “I think many of us are preparing for another potential shutdown, so we’re providing a virtual for all of our listings now, so we can continue operating safely.” The transition to virtual home showing and buying strikes Lipkin Audette agent Kim Corey as natural. “People are just doing it in a different way [now],” she said. Corey has facilitated two virtual sales since April 20. For one, as the agent for buyers in Pennsylvania, she FaceTimed her client while walking through four properties. The buyers eventually chose a newly constructed house in Colchester. “You have to have a little bit of a
REAL ESTAT E
sense of humor, because when I was FaceTiming them, I was wearing a mask,” noted Corey, who has worked in real estate for 11 years in Manhattan and Vermont. “I find it very fun,” she added. “You can zoom in on the countertop or the type of flooring, and I can touch it and describe the feel.” Verbal descriptions may work in a pinch, but virtual buying has its limitations. Said Lipkin, “There’s no replacement for physically getting in there. You don’t get a sense of the noise, the smells, the vibe, the flow. [Virtual touring] is the best alternative, but it’s still not the same.”
YOU CAN ZOOM IN ON THE COUNTERTOP OR THE TYPE OF FLOORING,
AND I CAN TOUCH IT AND DESCRIBE THE FEEL. KI M COREY
Corey made her other virtual sale as the sellers’ agent for Sue and Chris Capetz. The couple needed to sell their South Burlington house because Sue, a merchandise planner, was starting a new job in Florida. “When we listed it [on April 10],” Sue recalled, “we said, ‘We’re never going to sell this house during this situation.’ The issue was that the Realtor had a stager and a photographer, but no one could go into your house. So, to list, we had to make our own pictures and video and send it to their team, who edited it down. I thought they looked pretty good.” The buyers ended up being from South Burlington, too. They viewed the house on April 11 via a “walking Zoom tour” on Chris’ phone. Both agents were also on the call. “My husband walked through every room in the house, opened all the closets,” Sue recalled. “The potential buyers asked, ‘Hey, could you put the camera over here, over there?’ It lasted an hour and 10 minutes — it was a very
thorough showing. The next day they submitted an offer.” As of May 27, agents can show a property to a group of 10 or fewer people, according to Kathy Sweeten, CEO for the Northwestern Vermont Board of Realtors. But safety standards, issued by the Vermont Agency of Commerce and Community Development, are stringent. Everyone must wear a mask and practice physical distancing; touching hard surfaces should be avoided; and visits must be spaced to allow for a half hour of cleaning time in between. Open houses are now permitted under the same rules. Contact tracing, added Bridge, is part of the new real estate picture, too. “Every agent is supposed to keep a log of who they’ve shown property to and which properties they’ve shown. And listing agents have been asked to keep a log of who is showing each property.” Safety will be paramount in what promises to be a particularly busy — if delayed — Vermont market this year. Many agents indicated that prepandemic listings were already scarce, and they predicted that demand would only grow. “Because of the quarantine, there likely will be an influx of people who live elsewhere purchasing in Vermont,” Bridge commented. “We just have less density [than threatened urban areas], and our infection numbers have been low.” Bridge also noted that “the median number of days a home is on the market was [already] at an all-time low in Chittenden County” before the pandemic; meanwhile, demand has increased. It remains to be seen whether virtual home transactions will continue as the state begins to open up. Some may agree with Sue Capetz, who sold her home virtually but won’t buy her next one that way. “That’s not for me. I need to go in and feel it out,” she declared, adding that she and her husband will stay with relatives in Florida while looking for a house. The flood of online tours does mean that buyers can be more selective about what they want to see in person. Meanwhile, Lipkin noted, “Inspection dates, appraisals, financing dates are all being extended for these extraordinary times. It just feels like everyone’s pulling together — sellers, buyers — to figure it out.” m
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Ethan Joseph and Jessica DeBiasio’s front yard “mini farm” in South Burlington
Urban and suburban dwellers reimagine the lawn BY J ORDAN BARRY
Grass is an easy crop to grow, if it rains. Maintaining it, on the other hand, is one of suburbia’s running jokes. In Vermont’s few suburban areas, transforming front yards into productive garden spaces is nothing new, with residents doing it for aesthetic, practical or philosophical reasons, including the climate impact of maintaining a grass monoculture. With more people focused on gardening during the COVID-19 pandemic, though, the movement against lawns is more visible than ever. Even Shelburne Farms is reevaluating its relationship to grass. The nonprofit’s sprawling green space will look a little wilder this year, with lawns mowed less frequently and on a smaller scale. According to the farm’s website, its “environmental commitment, coupled with limited hiring of seasonal staff due to COVID-19,” has resulted in a shrinking lawn. The grass that does get mowed will be kept taller as part of the “Raise the Blade” campaign, which seeks to improve soil and waterway health. Unconventional front yards can be a point of contention in perfectly planned neighborhoods. But when they’re turned into thoughtful gardens, they can also be a beautiful way to reconnect with neighbors, nourishment and nature. We visited three Burlington-area front yard gardens that are putting it all out there in the crusade against grass. 12
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Farm House
In a suburban South Burlington neighborhood, Ethan Joseph and Jessica DeBiasio have transformed their front yard into a 2,500-square-foot mini farm that showcases vegetables, herbs, fruit trees and flowers. When the two bought their house in 2012, they knew they wanted to have a big home garden. Putting it in front of the house wasn’t a statement; it was a necessity. “Our backyard, where most people would do their gardening and nonpublic activities, is all wooded and quite wet,” Joseph explained. “The front yard is what our piece of property offered us. Now I kind of have an aversion to lawns, and I’ve been on a mission to get rid of all of the turf grass on our property.” Joseph, the head winemaker and vineyard manager at Shelburne Vineyard, is a lifelong gardener. When he and DeBiasio were looking for a place to buy, they initially wanted to be farther outside the urban area and have a bit of land. But the suburban life has turned out to suit them perfectly.
“I can get home from working in the vineyard all day and have this sizable — but still really manageable — garden to take care of as a hobby and a way to clear my head,” Joseph said. “Any bigger, and it would feel too much like work.” The food the couple produces — nearly three dozen crops — is supplemental, but it includes enough tomatoes to freeze as sauce, beans to dry, and squash to eat through the winter. Over time, Joseph has noticed newly planted raised beds, fruit trees and small gardens around the neighborhood. “I don’t know if they’re out of a bit of camaraderie and we were their direct inspiration,” he said, but he hopes putting the garden out front has helped inspire his neighbors to rethink their unproductive lawns. “Even turning a section of the yard into a wildflower area brings in pollinators and would be beneficial to neighbors that are taking a different approach and growing crops,” he said. “There’s so much lawn, and a lot of potential.”
PHOTOS: JAMES BUCK
Up Front Gardening
G A R DENI NG Perennial Source
FM Muñoz and John Paul Grogan’s evolving front yard in the New North End of Burlington
FM Muñoz and John Paul Grogan doubled the size of their front yard garden in the New North End this year. They also enlarged the vegetable-filled raised beds and added perennial fruit plants behind their house. But the work out front, combined with social distancing, has changed their thinking about where they spend time. “When we have friends over, we’re always gathering in the back,” Muñoz said. “Since we’re not doing that right now, the front yard has become the place where we can have those social interactions with our neighbors and our community. “There’s so much unstructured, unplanned, positive community building that’s happening while we’re in our front yard digging in the dirt,” he continued. “That doesn’t happen when you’re cloistered in the backyard.” The front yard’s perennial beds represent eight years of gardening; each year, Muñoz and Grogan have divided patches of prolific plants such as lamb’s ear and coreopsis, spreading them throughout the garden. Muñoz uses that incremental progress to measure the passage of time. This summer’s expansion will make an especially significant mark: The COVID-19 pandemic coincided with Muñoz stepping out on his own as an independent business and marketing consultant. One of his clients, fittingly, is Hinesburg’s Red Wagon Plants. While Muñoz helped the nursery adapt to its booming e-commerce business, Red Wagon owner Julie Rubaud lent her expert eye to the front yard project, helping to create a sense of cohesion. The new beds are more than just aesthetically pleasing; dual-purpose edible and medicinal perennials such as feverfew, Roman chamomile and echinacea are tucked throughout. “Julie’s been really inspiring in terms of identifying plants that are functional and serve a beautiful role in the garden, as well,” Muñoz said. He dreams of a day when the entire front yard is planted with perennials and vegetables, and there’s no lawn to mow. “Every time we talk about the garden, we talk about how much more grass we’re going to rip up,” Muñoz said. “We joke about it, but it’s really just about the time and the tools and the energy to get it done.” UP FRONT GARDENING NEST SUMMER 2020
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Growing Community When Matt Kolan moved to Queen City Park 10 years ago, transforming the front yard from grass and concrete into garden space was the first priority — even before addressing the inside of the apartment. “I wanted more than anything to be able to have hands in the dirt and to tend plants,” Kolan said. After posting online seeking to borrow a rototiller, Kolan got a response from a local master gardener volunteering her time. When she arrived on a Friday afternoon, instead of a rototiller, she’d brought a tractor and a disker to handle the job. “I’d just moved in, and everybody coming into the neighborhood — which is a dead end — was driving by while she was doing loops in the front yard,” Kolan recollected. Over time, the garden has grown into a collection of beds filled with annual vegetables and perennial plantings: seaberries; blueberry bushes; thornless black raspberries; rhubarb; mulberry, apple, pear and peach trees; sweetgrass; a massive kiwi vine on the front steps; and a strawberry patch that has produced as much as 100 pounds a year of berries for the freezer — and the neighborhood. For Kolan, who is a senior lecturer in the Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources at the University of Vermont and director of UVM’s Leadership for Sustainability master’s program, gardening is about getting to know plants in different ways, rather than productivity. “I’m much more interested in the garden as a sanctuary space than as a space that is turned into how much we can get out of it,” Kolan said. This vision of sanctuary, however, is far removed from any notion of hiding behind tall fences in the backyard. This year, more than ever, Kolan’s neighbors are stopping to ask what’s growing or what has grown well in the sandy soils as they plan gardens of their own. Kolan sees these conversations as a way of making and building community, just as sharing the bounty of the garden is. “For me, sanctuary is something community can be connected to,” Kolan said. “It’s sweet when it doesn’t feel like it’s sanctuary just for us.” m
Matt Kolan’s sprawling front garden in Queen City Park
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Contact: jbarry@sevendaysvt.com
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Home Is Where
the Art Is
How quarantined artists make it work
Sage Tucker-Ketcham’s studio
BY PAME L A P O LS T O N
Over the past few months, so many statements and stories have been prefaced with “during the pandemic.” This is one of them. After March 24, when Gov. Phil Scott issued a stay-at-home order to prevent the spread of COVID-19, artists — like most of us — suddenly found themselves, well, at home. Endlessly. We wondered what the quarantine period has been like for artists who had to abandon studios and find a way to make art in, typically, much smaller quarters at home. What did those work spaces look like? Given that artists normally spend a lot of time alone, has the enforced home stay felt different? Has it influenced their work or their ability to make it? Has caring for or homeschooling children compromised the focus of studio time? In May, after two months of quarantine, we queried Wylie Garcia and asked for a photo of her home work space, then asked her to recommend another artist and continued until we had seven. Here are their responses.
Wylie Garcia PAINTER, CHARLOTTE
Due to the pandemic, I am working out of my mom’s apartment, which is attached to our home. Although work spaces tend to pop up anywhere in our house. I use her breakfast nook as my primary studio space. Working from home feels normal to me, but I am getting better at working in small bursts, knowing I might get interrupted and redirected elsewhere at any given moment. I like to work on multiple projects at the same time — formerly large paintings in my studio and smaller paintings at home. My flower paintings (now on view at Soapbox Arts in Burlington) sort of became an active resistance to the pandemic. I’m trying to just think about shape and color and form — just trying to become a better painter. I also have a new pandemic-inspired performance-sculpture-interactive project percolating. My home studio is limiting in size, but it’s intimate and it’s perfect for right now. Wylie Garcia’s studio
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W O R K S PACES
Sage Tucker-Ketcham’s studio
Neil Berger’s studio
Sage Tucker-Ketcham PAINTER, SHELBURNE
Neil Berger PAINTER, SHELBURNE
My work space, before and during the pandemic, is a small former horse barn with the hayloft removed and windows added. My life has continued somewhat as before. I am a stay-at-home dad. My day is centered on taking my son on walks in the LaPlatte Nature Park, doing housework and painting. I feel like this time has been clarifying — a continuation of a clarifying process of the last few decades. The silent power of art is endless. My
Arista Alanis COMMUNITY ARTS PROGRAM COORDINATOR, VERMONT STUDIO CENTER, AND PAINTER, JOHNSON
I started working at my small kitchen table due to the pandemic. The kitchen is in the center of a bungalow second-floor apartment and has the most natural light. I am comfortable being alone, but this much time alone is pushing it. Hours in the studio are heaven; hours at the kitchen table have been challenging. I’m also teaching art remotely from the same table. Not having the stimulating community distractions to balance my daily responsibilities is difficult. I’m thankful to be able to take lots of walks in nature.
works for big stretches were inadequate, but not in a self-pitying way. It’s actually kinda funny, almost uplifting. (See “Four Quartets,” T.S. Eliot.) My studio makes me feel very good. I don’t really notice anything when I walk in, which is a good thing. I just walk up to the table and work. If I could do it over, I would have made the window high on the west wall (formerly the hayloft door) and three times bigger — a real rose window statement.
In my studio, I generally have my routine. I fill up my water bottle, change my shoes and put on my music. I pace around looking at the various large, unfinished painted canvases. Then I pick up an oil brush and begin. With the studio practice in the house, I don’t have an easel, only a small surface area on the 39-by-27inch kitchen table. I’m also working from this same location, so it also holds work papers, books, two computers used for remote teaching, and water-soluble painting supplies. Working at the kitchen table … I’m lucky to have a moment of delight where I’m calm and have forgotten everything that is happening in the world.
HOME IS WHERE THE ART IS
» P.18
I shared a big garage bay behind Feldman’s Bagels … with artist Wylie Garcia. I loved it! But when the stay-at-home order went in place, and all of a sudden I was homeschooling a 7-year-old and covering the cost of a studio I couldn’t use, I felt it was the best choice to move back home. My studio is in a finished basement, 10 by 12 feet. I have a biggish egress window and clamp lights hung on a shower rod. I use old kitchen cabinets to store stuff. It reminds me of my apartment when I was 23, in Portland, Maine, when I was in art school. It even has the same furniture. It’s not fancy — it’s sorta small and dark — but it’s mine; it’s where I get to be alone with my paint and make a mess. I only wish it had giant windows, a view and lots more light. I have been making paintings about houses for almost four years. Now, I am working on a series that takes place in the house … I realized I have a nice, safe, warm home, and I am very grateful for it. My paintings can now be about that.
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Kate Donnelly’s studio
Kate Donnelly MULTIMEDIA AND PERFORMANCE ARTIST, BURLINGTON Ross Sheehan’s garage studio
Ross Sheehan PAINTER AND SCULPTOR, VERGENNES
My home studio consists of a 10-by-12-foot corner in my garage. It’s basically an unfinished Sheetrock wall for painting, a small table for a palette, and a chair. Normally it’s littered with found materials. Usually, I find it more productive to get out of the house and to work in my Vergennes studio. With homeschooling, and other obligations in and around home, I am currently dedicated to working on art here, too. Whenever possible, getting out “into the field” to take a walk alone, to take some
photos or notes, helps alleviate the stresses of cabin fever and promotes concepts to bring back into the garage studio. I have been practicing photography, poetry and video, and I have most recently revisited painting as the functional space in my garage has slowly evolved. It’s a constant reminder to think like a bricoleur — I’ve become even more dedicated and open to using the materials and tools already existing at hand. I look forward to being in the garage studio. It’s a bit dark and quiet, and it encourages me to reflect on the surreal days passing by. It can feel a bit absurd in there, but it gives me solace and sanity at the same time.
Kristen Mills
Kristen Mills with her green screen
VISUAL ARTS PROGRAM MANAGER, VERMONT STUDIO CENTER, AND VIDEO ARTIST, JOHNSON
When Vermont Studio Center shut down due to the pandemic, I had to move both my office and studio home. I live in a small apartment, approximately 300 square feet. My office is now in my very tiny eating area, and the living room became my studio. My work at VSC also shifted to virtual programming, so my job now overlaps with the way I work in my studio. Working at an artist residency, I am around many people all day, so the quarantine has taken quite a bit of adjusting. However, when I work in my studio, I do work alone. It’s just the blurring of the lines — home, work, studio, repeat — that gets complicated and can feel exhausting. This time of quarantine, and the 18
NEST SUMMER 2020
pandemic itself, has helped me to care about my work more. In general, this unsettling moment has been a bit of a wake-up call — to think more, to pay attention more, to not take life for granted.
I have grown used to working and living in my small home. But I often have to move things around in order to do another task. At VSC, I literally have things on wheels so that I can move staging and objects around easily.
My temporary studio is in the bay window of my mother’s farmhouse in the Northeast Kingdom, 75 (million?) miles from my studio in Burlington. At the same time that the pandemic shut everything down, my mother was diagnosed with end-stage lung cancer. My sister (from New Jersey) and I have been caring for her full time since mid-March, while we work remotely. In recent years, my practice has become increasingly collaborative. While in isolation with my sister and mother during her illness, I have been working solo, building objects for a performance. The performance, choreographed for three women, disrupts sentimental notions of the labor of love and interrogates the effects and costs of this labor on the body and the body politic. My practice centers on issues of care and the broad disparities of how (Western) society values caregiving. Although my current project began before the pandemic, local and global issues posed by COVID-19 add even more urgency and complexity to my subject. The present moment reveals a geography of care, and it’s labor that is otherwise largely invisible and undervalued. The pandemic and the now-elongated experiences with isolation, illness and the rural environment and economy are influencing the shape of this work profoundly. m Contact: pamela@sevendaysvt.com
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