Opening Soon!

GreenTARA Space is the old church reclaimed as a place for art, food, and work.  The focus on art within our environment takes on many forms… it is often tactile, sculptural, and even functional as you will see over the coming months.  The intent of GreenTARA is to hold a space open for engaged, enlightened activity.  We believe that the inspired vision of artists can strengthen our connection to the greater Universe. 

We also offer workshops that build a bond between art and the environment and the rental of co-work space.

Look for month-long art Exhibits, Opening events with local foods and drink, Walks and Talks, music on Sunday mornings, and other as yet to be discovered happenings.

Please join us Friday, May 12th for our first Art Opening and Building Celebration.  As we get started our hours of operation will be Fri, Sat, Sun 10-4pm or by appointment. 

Dreams of Light

Light is elusive and intangible, and yet so real.  It flows in to waken the day, and flows out to bring the night.  We are creatures that thrive in this diurnal ephemeral phenomenon.  We bask in the sun that comes in March, the one that melts away the snow and starts the sap flowing, the one that brings strong rays of light reminding us to watch for signs of buds that too soon become the shady bowers of leafy branches.

We catch the warmth of light in so many ways.  Most directly with our bodies, but also with Earth as the soil warms up and the ground thaws, or the lake as it gives up ice to melt into fresh water.  The moisture stored over winter becomes mud too, and of course nutrients, for the next growing season—the one we’ve forgotten about over the dark months. 

Bring on the sun, but capture it too with open windows, bicycles, sailboats, solar panels, wind generators…. and of course our fields and gardens.

GreenTARA Space

Illustration by former UVM student.

Why GreenTARA?  How is this the name for an art gallery?  A coffee/tea place?  Or even rental studios? 

It comes from a desire to hold the Space open for creative energy and heartfelt action, to allow the unfolding of a sense of community, and to work toward a healthier future.  We are collectively the Universe.

We define the world based on what we know and see and feel, but it is so much bigger than this.  If we were to put all our individual lives together and weave them into a whole, the entire Universe of time and space would warp out before us, in all directions…  Blue Sky, Sea of Ice, Land of Being.

Green Tara, a Tibetan boddhisatva, represents the embodiment of enlightened action.  And so for me this reclaiming of a historic general store, a former Catholic church, and a place in the center of the village is a creative act.  It is a faith in the beauty of heart and spirit, work and action, food and health; it is the creation of an environment in which they can come together.  It is GreenTARA.

Instinct for Building

White froth packed into frozen slurry

Broken only by pools of deep blue

And streaks of shining silver

On the edge, the gulls in light.

We aren’t the only builders on the planet.  Birds of all kinds build nests… ranging from whole canopies of platforms in the treetops of a swamp to individual mud-and-stick waddled together and carefully stuck under a nearby eave.

Of course bees are well known for their hives and collective activity, but what about the little mice who build soft, wooly habitats under the hood of your lawn tractor?  Or the extensive termite mounds that cross acres of land, creating whole cities underground?

As sentient beings, we change our local biomes in viable, life-sustaining ways daily and have done so for millennia.  But now somehow we’ve also learned to impact this complex system in unforgiving ways.   Our ability to affect the clean air, fresh water, and healthy soils is jeopardizing the future not only of beauty, but of life as we know it.  I think it will be the colonies of ants who will take over what we’ve erected for buildings and cities.  They will survive.

So why do we argue about climate?  We all have an instinct to change it.  Adaptation happens.  We adapt to climate, but also adapt climate to us and our needs.  We change it with every action we take…  whether we grow tomatoes in Vermont or buy them at the store, whether we heat our houses in winter or go to Florida, whether make art or buy it.  We love to change our environment, to transform what we inherit, and yet the planet… each day fills us with awe.

Walks and Talks

Look for our Walks and Talks!  Most will be on Sunday afternoons, but weather may play a role in the schedule, so please check the website.

We plan to start in June with some birding and wildflowers, perhaps geology and other walks in July, a boatbuilding talk in August, and more birding in September.   If you have a particular interest in this please sign up under Membership on the website.  We will post a schedule that includes who the leaders will be and more specific information on time and place…. when we get closer to June!

Winter Light

Winter light crossing the drawbridge and looking west to New York.  Photo captured by Terry Marron and Sally Fellows, our intrepid birders.  Look for more on their activities this summer.

Brewing Storms

Storms brew all year-round, even with the ice gone.  So check out our new digs and the brews we’ll come up with, with or without ice… starting in May.  See you soon!