Sculpture Fest is one of the aesthetic benefits of life in this valley. Autumn day, bright sky, open fields, wood paths. You could do a lot of different things with these halcyon ingredients. The annual outdoor art event in Woodstock gives us the chance to spend such a moment walking through an open-air museum of contemporary artworks. Oh yeah, and you can bring along the picnic hamper, too.

The 14th edition of Sculpture Fest is now on view at the 304 Prosper Road property of artist-director Charlet Davenport and co-director Peter Davenport. It features works by Herb Ferris and Mary Mead, and includes new works by 20 other artists as well as a chance to revisit works form Sculpture Fests past still gracing the grounds.

Ferris, a Windsor-based sculptor, may be familiar to viewers as the artist who designed a large–scale installation for the Hood Museum of art’s "Tales of Japan" show in the early '90s. Here, his I Invite You, a soaring gateway of timber horns and gold leaf, opens the festival’s more-often-intimate ambience to a monumental scale, reaching up to enclose a big swatch of Vermont sky. Sure and strong, this open-hearted piece achieves instant-icon status, but its subtle proportions and curves keep surprising the eye. Much of Ferris’ other work offers the same pleasure so it’s surprising that still other works on view here, such as the tree-trunk forms festooned with breasts are so lacking in subtlety.

Those who know Mary Mead’s work won’t be surprised to read that her entries into Sculpture Fest play with scale and simple forms in ways that make us laugh and look again. Of her several pieces in this Fest, perhaps the most delightful is Openings, a stand of outsize button shapes each about a yard in diameter cast in colored concrete. The palette in this piece is reminiscent of the sugar-dusty delights of Necco wafers, and the button thicket radiates an enigmatic contentment.

Though dedicated to outdoor installations, Sculpture Fest has on its grounds a mini-barn which, this time around, demands a visit. Inside, televisions alternately offer viewings of Woodstock native Mark Osborne’s Oscar nominated short animated film, More, and White River Junction artist Matt Bucy’s video, Powers of Bush.

More’s plotline and themes are nothing new--think Grinch, Kane’s Rosebud and a little Animal Farm-but Osborne’s vision of a drab world in which we all slave away to earn enough to buy the next must-have widget is as brilliantly complete as any Terry Gilliam dystopia. Claymation alternates with drawing and computer effects to contrast the real, ugly world with back-to-the play- ground beauty that everyone can see if they just buy the next new widget. Whatever took the Oscar ahead of More must have been mighty good.

Powers of Bush is not the didactic short some might fear sitting through. (Bush boosters wouldn’t be interested, and those who understand just how dangerous our tongue-tied demagogue is don’t need reminding.) Only a few slurred words and phrases from a State of the Union address are clearly audible as thousands of still and moving images from the war on Iraq shift, recede and merge to form complex and disturbing mosaic images of the president delivering his speech. Bucy’s video artistry keeps the contrast between the shirt, tie and swagger, on the one and, and the countless visual document of the suffering of our soldiers and the Iraqi people from the combat casualties to torture victims in endlessly renewed focus. This isn’t a history lesson. It’s a slow steeping in patriotic pain.

Back outside, Seth Callander, last year’s featured artist at Sculpture Fest, reminds us of his ability to make form speak. With Broken Haiku, a pas de deux of rising wooden lines that create a calligraphy of poise in the space between them.

There’s something irresistibly hopeful about Jenny Swanson’s circle of colorful pottery plate fragments, Pie Squared, which seems to insist on the joy inherent in creativity’s inevitable making-and-breaking phase. All our breakups should appear so fortuitous.

James Teuscher’s Seven Days and Two Weeks, a truncated forest of stacked trunk sections, leans over the viewer like a totem raised to memorialize some transforming experience. Its potential energy galvanizes the far end of the exhibition ground’s vernal-pool glade.

There’s much else to enjoy at Sculpture Fest 2004. And if some few pieces are as relentlessly literal-minded as Ronnie Solbert’s No Boundaries, a metal-and-castings evocation of imagination as a brain with wings, the great majority give the viewer’s imagination much more room to move. A special event: the Yellow Trailer Art Gallery will be on the grounds, carrying on its mission of bringing art to the people and calling attention to alternative models for living and social interaction.

Story on Hector Santos by Cassie Horner, Vermont Standard, July 13, 2000. (Thank you to VT Standard for permission to reproduce this article).

"I didn't sleep last night," reported Hector Santos on a recent Monday morning, standing next to the upright granite slabs of his latest public sculpture behind the Unitarian Universalist Church. "I didn't know how the stone would set." For years, Santos has been maneuvering stone for the practical purposes of walls, patios and walkways. Stone is rarely just practical, however, with its inherent aesthetic appeal. Every piece is individual, and has to be placed and handled individually by the mason. "About three years ago, I decided to take what I do as a stonemason to a different level," Santos reflected.

This is his second project. (He built his first sculpture on Charlet Davenport's property as part of last year's Sculpture Fest.) The idea for an installation at the church took shape quickly. "The whole thing came about in one weekend," Santos said.

He talked to Davenport who suggested that he approach the Unitarian Universalist Church about a public spot. "I was by the river on a beautiful morning with Mount Tom in the background," he recalled. He picked out stone at Moulton Construction in Lebanon, then did a "bunch of drawings. Finally, I got up the courage to go the Universalist Church (with the idea.)" The church is giving the space and Santos is donating the materials and labor.

The sculpture, a semi-circle of 2 1/2 to 4 1/2- foot granite blocks facing the church, was created for the site. "I designed it around the church. I needed a design that would be fitting with the church," Santos explained. The blocks are set closely enough so they cast shadows on each other, and he is linking them together with thin strips of copper pipe. When he showed the design to his fiancÈe Amelia Rappaport, she described it as "embracing." The piece is called "Embrace."

"The backbone of what I do is rock work-patios, walls," Santos observed. The functional aspects of that work spill over into his other art. "I design sculpture as a space, not just an object," he said. "I create an environment where people can read, meditate or just hang out." The sculpture-in-progress is intended to have "kind of an altar effect." A bench in front of it will invite people to come close and stop.

Setting the granite blocks (the big stress factor for Santos) took place with the help of Bob Teeter and a logging truck crane from Maplecrest Farm in Woodstock. Teeter and Santos headed out to pick up the stone early Monday morning and three hours later, the placement was complete. The project went so well because of teamwork between the two men. Teeter operated the crane with precision and delicacy to match the directives of Santos in getting the stones just so. This was the first time they'd worked together. Teeter acknowledged when the job was done that he had worked in marble for four years at Vermont Marble.

"Embrace" will be complete by Aug. 1, in time for the Church Fair. The public is welcome to check out the site, while its in process and once it's done. It will be part of the Sculpture Fest this Fall. Santos likes the idea of public sculpture in Woodstock and wants to see the trend continue.

The spot down by the river is graced with ferns and other greenery, and is partially shaded. Santos hopes that the mix of sun and shade will encourage the growth of lichen and moss on the stones. The copper will also change with time for new effects.

"This is supposed to be here forever as far as I know," he said pensively.

--Hector Santos, drawing for "Embrace" (detail)

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"Festival Gives Sculptors Space," by Melissa MacKenzie, Rutland Herald, September 18, 2000. (Thank you to The Rutland Herald for permission to reprint this article.)

No signs mark the presence of "Sculpture Fest," a unique, annual outdoor exhibit of mostly large pieces on Prosper Road, just off Route 4 in West Woodstock.

Signs are not necessary.

"The people who need to come here, come here," says Charlet Davenport, a ceramic sculptor and painter who runs the event each year with the help of her husband, Peter, on their property.

This is postcard country, with rolling hills and trees and horses in the fields. The sculptures are sited pretty much everywhere, some in a small garden near the Davenports' clapboard farmhouse, others on the surrounding lawn or adjacent open fields. More sculptures can be found at the edge of the woods, or by a pond or farther up the hill.

"It started as a way to raise money for the Vermont Council for the Arts, but the amount of money going to the artists was small," said Davenport.

As a remedy, Davenport came up with the idea of inviting artists to exhibit for free on her land for six weeks. The artists were allowed to choose their own sites.

There was, and is, no admissions fee. The public is simply allowed to view - and buy, if they see something they can't live without. Small white cards are displayed near each work noting the artist's name, the name of the sculpture and the purchase price. Otherwise, the exhibits are unlabeled.

Davenport also provides an informal, black-and-white catalogue in a box beside the driveway, containing a brief summary of the artists' styles and sometimes a picture.

"It's pushed a lot of artists towards creating larger pieces. Ordinarily, it's difficult to find a place to exhibit anything big," Davenport said.

Now in its 11th year, the outdoor exhibition has become a place where people come and hang out, or picnic, often with small children, as well as a destination for out-of-state collectors.

Last week, with no advertising except a few posters and small notices in the media, about 300 people showed up at the opening reception of "Sculpture Fest 2000," to view the different styles and subjects of nearly 30 artists.

Playfulness is well-represented, alongside the serious. An arrangement of compost thermometers, taking the temperature of the earth, is provided by Bo Gibbs of Woodstock, a landscape designer. "Pink I Think," a series of pink ceramic squirrels mounted on a tree, is the work of Gail E. Richards of West Lebanon, N.H.

The hands-down children's favorite is "Stretch," a rope "path," designed collaboratively by Davenport and Peter Blodgett, that must be walked barefoot or in sneakers, with ceramic pots hanging just out of reach to either side. The pots are filled with Peruvian-inspired clay disks as prizes. Participants must stretch with care to get one, or fall to the ground, a distance of about a foot.

Prices range from $65 for one of Erik Rehman's haunting "Chrysalis" sculptures, peasant bodies suspended in husk-like shells, to $12,000 for Hallowell's realistic metal "Eagle," or up to $15,000 for a Santos stone creation.

Business is good. Among recent sales: "Horse," a metal sculpture by Joseph Fichter, $10,000 and "Llamas," three brightly colored metal figures by Joe Hallowell, $1,850

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