BRATTLEBORO — Three Brattleboro artists - Mollie S. Burke, Joan Peters, and Jude Roberts Rondeau - recently joined forces to present an exhibition focused on the threat posed to our Vermont winters by rising global temperatures and erratic weather.
“Endangered Season: Winter in Vermont,” which runs until Dec. 20, is simultaneously a celebration of the season and an urgent call to consider the impact of climate change on it.
Burke, also a member of the Vermont House of Representatives serving District 2 in Brattleboro, conceived of “Endangered Season” as a way to celebrate what “we love, and may lose, in order to move forward, and to engage others in the conversation on global warming and its impact on the Vermont landscape.”
Rondeau says that “Endangered Season” was conceived on skates.
“At the rink last winter, Mollie Burke glided up to me with her idea of a winter-themed art show,” she says. “We shared ideas, and three laps in I was totally on board with her concept and excited to start painting.
“It's inconceivable to imagine Vermont without a reliable, recognizable winter. So much of our identity, culture and commerce is framed around our snowbound landscape.
“I am grateful to Mollie for inspiring this show and for her continuing efforts to remind us of the wonder and fragility of our beloved Vermont winters,” Rondeau says.
Soon, a third artist, Joan Peters, came on board. She says that she is one of a legion of artists for whom winter is a visual delight.
“A snowy season presents a simplified world,” Peters explains in her artistic statement of “Endangered Season.”
“Forms, shadows, and colors are pure and sharp. My own fascination lies with snowmelt and waterways. I perceive a physical world stilled and frozen, yet in motion. At its best, winter is a time of great clarity.”
For this exhibition, this trio brought together both a series of their older works which collectively address the theme of global warming and Vermont's winter heritage, and new ones created specifically for this show as well.
In describing some of the art of the show, the December Guide to Gallery Walk describes Burke's paintings as portraying “the mystery of winter tinged with melancholy.”
“'Winter Moonlight in the Orchard' recalls a long-ago moonlight ski through a magical old orchard. 'Endangered Season II: Winter in Vermont' strikes a more discordant note, with images of Vermont winter activities like skating and skiing surrounded by melting water.
“This latter work references one of the purposes of the exhibit: to encourage people to consider the impact of climate change on the winter season.”
The Gallery Walk guide notes that several of Rondeau's painted posters “do the same by using image and word to encourage energy conservation and reduction of carbon emissions. Her 'Wheel of Fortune' invites viewers to spin a wheel to see the consequences of climate change on Vermont life.”
A follow-up show
“Endangered Season” is a sequel of sorts to a series of exhibitions that Burke organized at Amy's Bakery Arts Café in Brattleboro in 2006 and 2007: “The End of the Romance: Cutting Dependence on Our Automobiles” and “The End of the Romance: Cutting Dependence on Fossil Fuels.”
Burke describes the exhibits as “poster art on the subject of climate change, energy conservation, and the need to reduce fossil fuels.”
The art was contributed by “a variety of artists, including professionals and elementary school students, [who] answered the call for entries: to create art, in the poster tradition, encouraging people to change their consumption habits and political leaders to enact emissions-cutting legislation,” she says.
Burke explained in the December Guide to Gallery Walk that at that time she felt hopeful about the country's increasing awareness of the need to avert rising global temperatures.
However, only several years later, in 2010, her optimism had tempered.
“The failure of the Copenhagen climate conference [the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference] and more extreme weather events led me to organize a third poster exhibit, 'The End of the Romance: Getting Over Oil,'” she says.
That conference, she says, “was meant to coincide with an international day of action on 10/10/10, sponsored by 350.org, when people all over the globe posted photos and statements on the Internet to draw attention to the issue.
“Like the earlier exhibits, this one also attracted an impassioned selection of artists willing to express their concerns and hopes.”
Burke has found herself increasingly worried about climate change for more than 20 years. “This started out with a silent uneasiness about our winters,” she says, “how the snow seemed less reliable, the cold less drastic, with disruptions in the calendar of sugaring season.”
But soon she realized the scale was much bigger.
A winter enthusiast, Burke describes herself as February-born in the snows of Buffalo. “I spent my childhood in cold skating rinks, my teenage years on downhill slopes, and since moving to Vermont in my early 20s, I have been in love with Nordic skiing,” she says. “Nothing pleases me more than an old-fashioned blizzard.”
Although diminishment of winter snowfall and the general unreliability of the season leaves her with a “profound personal sadness, a sense of loss,” her personal concern “pales when considering the larger picture, the scientific predictions for our warming world.”
“When Sarah Edwards's House seat was available in 2008, I chose to run with the environment a main issue of concern,” Burke says. Now in her sixth year in office, she represents District 2 in Brattleboro, an area she believes carries with it a great civic responsibility.
The district includes “such important institutions” as Brattleboro Memorial Hospital, Brattleboro Union High School, and the Brattleboro Area Drop In Center, she points out.
Although she received her master's degree in fine arts from Goddard College in 2004, Burke has been a practicing artist for over 40 years. The two hats Burke wears - politician and artist - are not so different from each other, she says.
“Through my readings and writings at college, I came to understand the importance of my art connecting with a larger society, and not remained locked in some ivory tower,” she explains.
Burke has been inspired by and compared to Georgia O'Keeffe and Frida Kahlo, and she proudly identifies as a woman artist.
“I am dedicated to the promotion of what I consider feminine values,” she says. “Woman bring a particular set of concerns to the table. I feel that the lack of them is what has led us into this environmental crisis.”
In her artistic statement for “Endangered Season,” Burke writes: “There is much to do about global warming on the personal, community, and political fronts. The actions needed to address this are immediate, yet denial and procrastination currently have the upper hand.”
She and her fellow artists hope “Endangered Season” will generate the impetus in its audience to beginning addressing this imperative issue.