The Community of Artists

Under the golden dome of Vermont's State House, there is a plaque which reads:

If the spirit of liberty should vanish in other parts of the union and support of our institutions should languish, it could all be replenished from the generous store held by the people of this brave little State of Vermont.

When I first read this assertion from a 1928 speech given by Calvin Coolidge, it brought tears to my eyes. I was filled with pride in this state, whose small community exhibited such a strength of character that they could be charged with the task of restoring the tenets and principles upon which our Country was founded, should the stores of those ideals be depleted. Reading that statement on that day in Montpelier, my admiration for the state increased, and its people endeared themselves to me all the greater.

Over the last weekend in June, I had the pleasure of returning to that "brave little State of Vermont," and the privilege of making the acquaintance of a wonderful community of artists who gather there. A few weeks earlier, I had received an invitation to travel north and paint with Richard Schmid and the Putney Painters, and it was my honor to finally be able to do so. It was a great experience, and if I had not already loved that area of New England, then that event alone would have earned it my veneration.

Artists generally belong to no nation. We work in isolation in our studios, all hours of the day and night, and if we could just slip our finished paintings under the studio door so we could stay near the easel, most of us would be pretty content. It's not that artists are misanthropes (well, not most); it's just that "in solitude, and only in solitude, do artists create."†

Artists spend a great deal of time living and working in social isolation. Artists in all disciplines are confronted by this need, and for some, like novelists or painters, isolation may constitute the very essence of their lives, as it is the essence of the hermit's life.

Without such isolation, creativity cannot exist... An inability to seek out isolation, to love and make use of it, is a crushing impediment to the creative process. By the same token, there is no greater peril to the artist's mental health than failure to realize how risky a business prolonged social isolation can become.††

Prior to the 1980's, Richard Schmid, like most of, worked in relative isolation. Gregarious by nature, he was of course involved in teaching, writing, attending his shows, and at times, sharing his studio space with other artists, but he was not a member of community dedicated to the arts. Things changed, however, nearly thirty years ago, when Schmid formed a painting group in which members with a similar mindset worked alongside each other, challenging and encouraging each other's progress. He immediately felt the benefits of creating such a circle of artists, and decided to form other like groups whenever he moved to a new region of the country. The Putney Painters is the most recent of those groups the painting icon fostered.

Formed by Schmid and his wife Nacy Guzik when they relocated to Vermont, the Putney Painters encompasses artists of varying ages, abilities, goals, and stations in their careers, whom Richard invited to participate in semi-regular gatherings. These artists share a devotion to their art and realism in general, and a willingness to work diligently, which Richard seems to respect, and which encouraged him to include them in this little band of creatives in the first place.

Their meetings are not tutorials; everyone works on their own project, including Richard and Nancy, but everyone enjoys the opportunity to watch and learn from the others in the group. There is a strong camaraderie among the Putney Painters, where helpful suggestions, and playful insults are shared, and where lunchtime discourse ranges from tonal values to deep discussions on the validity and application of Jungian psychology. The rewards of participating in the group have been enormous for many, as some of the artists who only picked up a brush a few years earlier, are now producing high caliber art which they bring in for their colleagues to critique. For these artists, the Putney Painter sessions provide a manner of connection, and a source of inspiration, which fuels their art when they return to their home studio.

Is it too much to claim that America's recovering realist art movement could be fully replenished by the generous store of talent and enthusiasm of this little Vermont group? Maybe, but what America's realist renaissance does stand to gain from this group is a model, that if duplicated across the country, could bring about a greater and faster positive change in our artistic environment.

† Eric Maisel, Ph.D., A Life in the Arts (New York, NY: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1994) p. 164.

†† Ibid., p. 163.

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Putney Painter, Andrea Scheidler, is doing her part to expand the family of realist artists. She has recently rented a large studio space on the first floor of the building which held her smaller, personal space in Brattleboro, Vermont. This new space is not only the home of Andrea's new studio, but is also home to the High Street Painters.

Andrea's goal in creating the High Street Painters is to provide a core group of dedicated artists who would have the opportunity to study as a unit with some of the nation's best artists. Rather than traveling separately from workshop to workshop, the artists will bring the teachers to them, and as a benefit from this, the artists will have already formed bonds with each other, and will already be comfortable working together. What is more, Andrea intends to bring the same instructors back on a recurring schedule, so that the teachers too can form a stronger familiarity with their students.

"...members share classes, exhibit space and events and come from various parts of the east coast to meet at Andrea's studio in Brattleboro, Vermont twice a month."

Since its very recent inception, the High Street Painters have already hosted Clayton Beck, Dorian Vallejo, and Clint Hobart, and there are plans to bring in Robert Liberace soon. Between these visiting artists, Scheidler has also proposed painting events, including making use of students from the local ballet school to stage costumed, multiple-figure compositions from which the group can paint.

Though the workshops and events are geared toward the High Street Painters group, they welcome guests based on space availability. The cost per day is $30, plus a portion of the model fees. For more information, contact Andrea at highstreetpainters@yahoo.com, or visit the High Street Painters website, www.highstreetpainters.com.