SHELBURNE, Vt. — A Vermont museum has acquired a more than 200-piece collection of Native American art and is planning to construct a $12.6 million facility to house the pieces that make up a rare national collection in the Northeast.
The collection donated to the Shelburne Museum is comprised of late 19th and early 20th century pottery, beadwork, clothing and weavings predominantly from Plains and Southwest communities, and combined with its existing Native American collection represents nearly 80 tribes, the museum said.
“Together, the two collections are over 500 items and that’s a center of gravity, which is fairly important for northern New England,” said museum director and CEO Thomas Denenberg.
The 9,750-square-foot (906-square-meter) building — called the Perry Center for Native American Art — will be designed by Adjaye Associates, an internationally known firm that designed the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C. The building is slated to open in the spring of 2026 and “planned to be a highly sustainable pavilion designed to support the culturally appropriate interpretation and care of Indigenous material culture,” the museum said in a statement.
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Museum officials have consulted on the project with the leaders of the four bands of the state-recognized Abenaki tribes in Vermont.
“The museum’s collaborative approach to stewardship of the Native American collection and construction of the Perry Center for Native American Art is commendable,” Don Stevens, chief of the Nulhegan Band of the Coosuk Abenaki Nation, said in a statement. “Like the museum, we see this project as an opportunity to bring more people to Shelburne and the region from across the country and internationally to study, learn about and experience Native American art and material culture.”
Some of the pottery is currently on display at the museum in an exhibition that opened last week. The pieces include water jars, grain storage vessels and big bowls, painted with geometric and other patterns. They, along with the rest of the 200-piece collection, were donated by Teressa “Teri” Perry in memory of her late husband Tony Perry, a noted businessperson in Vermont with a deep connection to the region, according to the museum.
A dough bowl made in the Zia Pueblo in New Mexico in the 1930s-1940s is displayed at the Shelburne Museum in Shelburne, Vt., Friday, June 21, 2023. The museum was gifted a more than 200-piece collection of Native American art and plans to build a $12.6 million facility for them. Some of the pottery is currently on display. Credit: AP/Lisa Rathke
“Tony was always drawn to the multi-dimensional nature of Native American art,” Teri Perry said in a statement. “He appreciated that this material not only surrounds you in beauty and history, but it also invites a sense of contemplation and spirituality.”
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John Stomberg, director of the Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, who visited the current exhibit, called the pieces “stunning.”
In northern New England, the origins of the Native American collections at the Hood Museum and the Abbe Museum in Bar Harbor, Maine, tend to be more related to anthropology and archeology, Denenberg said. They can also be more local while this collection is national, he said, comparing it to the 116-piece Charles and Valerie Diker Collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
“In both cases these major gifts have transformed the museum in a way that it tells the story of North American art and culture. They share that. The Perry collection is a top notch collection,” Stomberg said.
The new building in Vermont will be the 40th at the 45-acre museum of American Art and Material Culture. The gift was announced in May.
“Bringing these collections together presents an opportunity to collaborate with Tribes in the study of both historical and contemporary Indigenous material culture and art in a manner accessible to students, scholars and visitors,” Denenberg said a statement.
SUTTON, N.H. (WHDH) – A Vermont man is facing multiple charges in connection with a Thanksgiving crash in Sutton, N.H. that sent a New Hampshire State Police trooper to the hospital, police said.
At around 10:11 a.m. Thursday, a trooper responded to the southbound side of I-89 to help a driver who had gone off the road in snowy conditions, according to the New Hampshire State Police.
While the trooper was in the breakdown lane helping the driver, a 2009 black Honda Accord traveling “at speeds excessive for the existing road conditions” slid and crashed into the police cruiser, as well as a fire chief’s pickup truck, police said.
The driver, identified as 22-year-old Daniel Poroj, of Shelburne, Vt., and the state trooper were taken to New London Hospital with minor injuries, police said.
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According to police, the trooper’s cruiser had its flashing blue emergency lights activated, as well as a Department of Transportation pickup truck directing drivers to “move over” with an arrow on an electronic messaging board.
Poroj was summonsed to appear in Hillsborough District Court in March on charges of operating without a valid license, negligent driving, unregistered vehicle, duty when approaching a highway emergency, and speed too fast for existing road conditions.
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The expected snowfall totals in Vermont over Thanksgiving. Image via The National Weather Service’s Burlington Office
Vermont utility companies have been hard at work restoring power to thousands of customers after a holiday snow storm brought heavy, wet snow that knocked out power lines Thursday.
The Thanksgiving storm effects were “fairly on track” with predictions as the Champlain Valley experienced mostly rain while southern and central Vermont and higher elevations reported more snowfall, said Jessica Storm, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s Burlington office.
The holiday storm gifted Killington Mountain skiers 21 inches of fresh snow in time for this weekend’s World Cup, according to the Killington Mountain Resort’s latest conditions report.
As of 2:00 p.m. Friday, there were still 1,266 customers without power around the state, including over 800 Green Mountain Power customers and more than 400 Washington Electric Cooperative customers. Central Vermont reported the most remaining outages, with over 400 customers in Orange County, over 300 customers in Rutland County, and over 200 customers in Windsor County without power as of Friday afternoon.
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Kristin Kelly, director of communications for Green Mountain Power, said over 16,000 customers lost power because of the storm, but line workers had restored power to about 15,000 customers and expected to fix power outages for the rest of their affected customers by the end of Friday.
“Our field operations team tracks multiple forecasts for days in advance of something like this, so that we can be prepared to respond as quickly and as safely as possible for customers,” said Kelly.
The number of affected Washington Electric Cooperative (WEC) customers peaked at nearly 2,000 who experienced power outages due to the snow storm and additional outage reports are expected, said Louis Porter, general manager of WEC.
“What happens in a storm like this with wet snow is frequently the tree branches spring back as the snow falls off them, and they slap into the lines if they’re leaning over enough, and that can cause a secondary outage,” said Porter.
All of the WEC crews along with two crews from Vermont Electric Cooperative and one contract crew were deployed Friday to help restore power to customers in Orange, Washington and Caledonia counties. Porter said he hoped most power outages would be fixed by the end of Friday, but there could be a few power outage incidents that take longer to remedy.
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“It can be hard to predict, particularly as you get down into the last few,” said Porter. “There’ll probably be a handful of outage events or breaks in the line that go into the night or even into tomorrow morning, ones that are particularly isolated and difficult to reach, or where there’s particular damage.”
Porter said the mutual aid agreement between WEC and other New England utility companies to share labor during destructive weather events is “essential” for rural public utilities. He commended the work of the crews helping to restore power to the state.
“These folks that do this work are absolutely incredible people,” said Porter. “They push themselves as hard as they can while remaining safe to restore power to their neighbors and the people that they serve.”
BURLINGTON, Vt. (WCAX) – Early risers scoped out savings in Vermont’s Black Friday blitz.
Church Street isn’t a Black Friday hub, but we have seen lines outside box stores like Best Buy and Target over the years. Still, many shoppers would rather scroll for sales than stand outside.
U.S. holiday shoppers could nearly $990 billion this season, and Black Friday makes up a significant chunk of sales.
The Vermont Retail & Grocers Association says shopping is well underway with sales similar to last year’s in the leadup to Black Friday.
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Still, many will forego in-person sales to score online, a growing trend in recent years.
“We never go out on Black Friday. I might buy a few things online but we really don’t go out to the masses on those days,” said Nina Mazuzan of Burlington.
A Capitol One study estimates Black Friday shoppers like Mazuzan are nearly 19% more likely to shop online than in-store. If that’s you, the Vermont Retail & Grocers Association encourages you to shop local Black Friday deals when you can.
