ISLAND POND —The Plum Creek Foundation recently awarded a $10,000 grant to The Vermont Folklife Center and visual artist Kathleen Kolb to help fund “Shedding Light on the Working Forest,” a traveling exhibition.
The exhibition project is a collaboration between artist Kathleen Kolb of Lincoln and poet Verandah Porche of Guilford to celebrate the working forest and those who hone their skills into a livelihood there. The exhibition will include paintings and drawings of loggers, truckers and others at work with poems and narratives distilled from conversations with those depicted. There will be a full color catalog, a website and public outreach workshops as well.
“We are excited to foster a greater understanding of the forest and forestry,” said Kolb. “Thanks to the generosity of the Plum Creek Foundation, we can do this work to engage and inspire our communities. It’s a privilege to show how the forest provides vital natural resources, a workplace, a home, a field of study, and a place for renewal.”
The exhibit will begin its tour at the Brattleboro Museum and Art Center Oct. 2 through Jan. 3, 2016. It will continue its journey from January to May at the Vermont Folklife Center in Middlebury, followed by the Vermont Supreme Court in Montpelier from October through December 2016 and the Vermont State House in early 2017. Additional venues are being scheduled.
The Vermont Folklife Center submitted the exhibit’s grant application to the Plum Creek Foundation on behalf of the artist.
The mission of the Plum Creek Foundation is to provide philanthropic contributions to support and improve the general welfare of life in the communities that Plum Creek serves. It is among the largest and most geographically diverse private landowners in the nation with more than 6 million acres of timberlands in 19 states.