Riveting and Ribbiting

Saturday 25

Nature devotees of all ages get their creepy-cool critter fix with Stark Mountain Foundation’s Turtles to Toads event at Mad River Glen in Waitsfield. Knowledgeable staff from the Southern Vermont Natural History Museum lead the engrossing educational program, packed with touchable artifacts and toad-ally unique reptiles and amphibians — up close and in the scaly flesh.

Dynamic Doves

Saturday 25

Capital City Concerts continues its lauded 25th season with vocal ensemble Culomba at the Unitarian Church of Montpelier. The group, whose name is Corsican for “dove,” performs a vibrant program titled “Color and Joy for a Winter Afternoon,” featuring a diverse repertoire that spans from Balkan traditions to original compositions — the perfect remedy for those postholiday blues.

Viral Vermonter

Saturday 25

Retired teacher Jen Ellis signs copies of her recent memoir, Bernie’s Mitten Maker — chronicling her experience with overnight fame — at Vermont Teddy Bear in Shelburne. Ellis rocketed into the cultural zeitgeist in 2021 when U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders famously donned her cozy creations on Inauguration Day. You can be like Bernie and purchase a pair of meme-worthy mitts for yourself!

Don’t Dream It, Be It

Saturday 25

Creature Feature Club — an intrepid troupe of performers based in White River Junction — reprises its shadow cast roles for a screening of The Rocky Horror Picture Show at New Hampshire’s Lebanon Opera House. Iconic cult characters Brad, Janet and Dr. Frank-N-Furter come to life — on the big screen and onstage — for double the bawdy, gender-blending bliss.

Playing With Fire

Saturday 25

Snowlights: Shadow Play at Highland Center for the Arts in Greensboro immerses guests in larger-than-life light displays. The illuminated indoor-outdoor event includes an interactive black light “ocean,” professional fire juggling, live music, and warm drinks and treats. Grab the kiddos and shake off January’s humdrum vibe where art, ingenuity and snow collide.

All Falls Down

Opens Wednesday 29

Vermont Stage raises the curtain on The Play That Goes Wrong at Main Street Landing Performing Arts Center in Burlington. Set in the 1920s, this Olivier Award-winning murder mystery seamlessly blends the satire of Monty Python with the wit of Sherlock Holmes, offering audience members a clever, cunning, laugh-out-loud whodunit theater experience.

Old Haunts

Ongoing

Susan Mikula‘s “Island” exhibition at the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center showcases haunting, atmospheric photographs created through the artist’s use of expired instant film and old Polaroid cameras. These dreamy, surrealist vistas highlight an unforgiving 30-acre shelf of bedrock in Bellows Falls — known as “the Island” — where human activity has long defined the landscape.

Vermont’s entire Congressional delegation attended President Donald Trump’s swearing in ceremony on Monday.

Several Democratic members of congress and other dignitaries skipped the ceremony. But U.S. senators Peter Welch and Bernie Sanders and U.S. Rep. Becca Balint were in attendance.

In a prepared statement, Balint said “supporting our democracy means we don’t only attend the peaceful transfer of power when our candidate wins.”

“As we move forward into a critical time in our nation’s history, I’m choosing calm,” Balint said. “Not because I’m blind to the dangers we face, but because this moment requires calm, focus and a clarity of purpose. As we heard outlined today, there is so much at stake, we can’t afford to get distracted or lose focus. Our very democracy is on the line.”

Welch offered congratulations to Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance.

“My job is to do the best I can to help Vermonters, and I’ll continue to do that,” Welch said in prepared remarks. “We are witnessing today the peaceful transfer of power.”

Sanders’ office said he “believes that the peaceful transition of power is the bedrock of American democracy and — no matter how strongly and profoundly he disagrees with President Trump on the important issues facing our country — it should be respected.”

Before social media or even the internet, Tasha Tudor embodied the cottagecore aesthetic now finding adherents on TikTok and Instagram. 

The Marlboro artist and homesteader died in 2008, leaving behind 75 years worth of illustrations that have appeared in more than 100 books, most of them children’s books. Behind her illustrations was a lifestyle that reflected the charm of rural simplicity. 

That is why Tudor is now being hailed online as the original pioneer of the cottagecore aesthetic — a trend that romanticizes rural charm and a self-sufficient lifestyle. More than 20 million videos featuring her have been posted on TikTok alone, with many sharing her illustrations and expressing a desire for a life like hers in the captions. She also regularly appears in Instagram content. 

Her resurgence among a younger online audience speaks to a generational yearning for escape from the fast-paced, hyper-digital modern world. Tudor’s life — filled with gardening, cooking and candle making — offers a counterpoint to the pressures of burnout culture. 

For many, she embodies the cottagecore ethos of a slower, more intentional way of living. In an era defined by climate anxiety, younger people find inspiration in her ability to romanticize the everyday and create beauty from the ordinary.

In an interview, her granddaughter-in-law said Tudor would undoubtedly have appreciated her social media stardom. “She loved sharing her ideas. Her illustrations recorded her daily life. I joke that Tasha was the original lifestyle blogger,” said Amy Tudor.

The Vermont artist’s work also continues to resonate beyond the online realm. 

While Vermont — her longtime home — lacks a dedicated museum, Tudor’s artistry enjoys remarkable acclaim in Japan, with the Tasha Tudor Museum in Yamanashi Prefecture, which opens seasonally.

In addition to the permanent museum, a traveling exhibit opened for two weeks in Tokyo, with 10,000 attendees. The exhibit will move to the Niigata Prefectural Botanical Garden from mid-March to May.

Amy Tudor said her popularity in Japan started with a single magazine article. 

Photographer Richard W. Brown, who took thousands of images of Tasha Tudor and her garden, said, “I’ve probably done 25 books on her in Japan because she’s practically a deity there.” 

Brown, who also published three books on Tudor in the U.S. and penned numerous magazine articles, remembered the first time he met her. An American culture magazine had asked him to take photos of her greenhouse.

“When I drove there, I couldn’t believe it. The world she created there was like getting out of a time capsule back 100 years,” Brown said. Her garden was huge, he recalled, and filled with fruit trees and flowers like poppies, foxgloves, peonies and daffodils.

In her modest Cape Cod-style house with wide plank flooring and stenciled patterns over its small windows, Tudor’s living area was a reflection of her simple way of living. The space featured an iron cook stove, pink tea sets, a red tablecloth and antique handcrafted furnishings. 

Before she married Tudor’s grandson Winslow, Amy Tudor spent a summer working as a garden apprentice for Tasha Tudor. She recalled Tudor inviting her up for a tea party.

“It was like visiting a museum that was still alive,” she said. “Candles were lit all the time, even during the summer.” 

Troy Mathers, a close friend of the Tudor family, also has evocative memories of visiting Tasha Tudor for several summers at her Vermont home. 

“Her staircase has been traveled on so many times. You could see the traffic of the feet on the board,” Mathers said. 

In the 1980s, Tudor had an exhibition at the Children’s Museum in Indianapolis, Indiana — Mathers’ home state. Mathers’ mother, who sold antique clothing, volunteered at the exhibition, and she and Tudor became friends. The two women later became business partners, which led to The Jenny Wren press, a business that sold Tudor’s artwork, postcards and books that she illustrated. 

During Mathers’ summer visits, Tudor painted watercolor portraits of him.“There was a charcoal one of me. I had to sit there forever. I was 8 years old,” Mathers said. 

Barefoot and dressed in 1830s style clothing, she spun wool and made candles, Mathers said. “She loved wearing dresses. We would go out to eat, and she was just so comfortable wearing these clothes,” he said. 

Mathers remembered Tasha Tudor was very particular about gardening and living a preindustrial way of life. “She was hard-core frugal. She ate the eggs from her chickens and drank the milk from her goats,” Mathers said. “She didn’t try to own all the gadgets.”