The Library Board held its third special meeting in a row on the evening of July 23rd, but it wasn’t until afterwards, at the Select Board meeting across the street, that a key decision was made: to fill the vacancy on the Library Board with applicant Cori Rail.
At the Select Board meeting several residents spoke out in favor of Rail’s appointment, including newest board member Lauren Herbert. Board Chair Harley Cudney stated that he worried about partisanship but ultimately expressed approval for Rail as a candidate for the position. Following the vote spontaneous applause broke out in the meeting room. To see the entire conversation watch the fifteen minute video below.
The Library Board meeting just prior had entertained extensive debate on two main questions: whether the board could continue to operate lawfully with only four members, and whether a recommendation for a new board member should be made to the Select Board for appointment immediately or in a few weeks time when other volunteers for the position might present themselves. Both questions became a moot point with Rail’s appointment.
The Library Board meeting which took place previously will be posted here soon.
Below is the video from the most recent meeting: first half and second half. There’s a LOT going on with the Pawlet Library Board these days so let’s see if I can sum it all up:
Library Board member and Treasurer Kathryn Lawrence submitted her resignation to Board Chair Harley Cudney on July 6th.
At the most recent Special Meeting on July 16th Library Board member Lauren Herbert argued that the Vermont Statute 22, section 143 requires the board to consist of five members before major decisions can be made. (Due to the recent resignation the board currently has only four members.)
The cited statute
Nevertheless, after heated discussion, the Library Board voted 3 to 1 to go ahead and offer the position of library director to one of the applicants.
Cori Rail has been proposed by Herbert as a candidate to fill Lawrence’s position on the board and as Treaurer. The ultimate decision as to filling the spot is made at the discretion of the Pawlet Select Board. Rail is a longtime member of the Mettawee School Board.
The Library’s Annual Book Sale is this weekend at the Mettawee Community School, Saturday 9-3 and Sunday 10-2.
THE NEXT SPECIAL MEETING IS SCHEDULED FOR TOMORROW, JULY 23. Here is the agenda:
For more info on the July 16 meeting, you can read the Manchester Journal article here.
This is the raw, unedited footage of the public portion of the Library Board’s Special Meeting on the evening of July 5th. Because it was a special meeting with shorter notice than regular monthly meetings, PEG TV was not available to record the meeting; this recording is presented here instead. As of this meeting no decision has been made to hire a new librarian, although three candidates have been interviewed. The next Special Meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, July 16 at 5PM, at the Pawlet Public Library, at which time it is expected that- like this meeting- a portion of the meeting will be conducted in executive session and another portion will be open to the public.
Depending on who you talk to, either the Pawlet Library Board Meeting tonight is cancelled, or there never was a meeting scheduled to begin with.
The upshot is that I have confirmed with the Pawlet Town Hall that no meeting will be happening at the library tonight, but there WILL still be a Select Board meeting, which everyone is encouraged to attend (Zoom attendance is also possible):
When will the Library Board meet again, you might ask? Well, according to Town Clerk Deb Hawkins, it would be usual for them to have a meeting on the first Tuesday of next month. Then again, the first Tuesday of March, is the Town Meeting, so I highly doubt any other town business will be happening that night.
Could it be that we’ll have to wait until April – or longer- to have another Library Board meeting?
Plastic is everywhere: from the top of Mount Everest to the placenta of unborn babies. But what can we really do about it and why? On Sunday, October 1 at 2 PM the Southern Vermont Art Center will host an afternoon of conversation with noted environmentalist Bill McKibben, former regional EPA administrator and Beyond Plastics founder Judith Enck and the humorist author of Year of No Garbage Eve O. Schaub, moderated by WAMC’s Joe Donahue.
Co-sponsored by the Northshire Bookstore and the Southern Vermont Art Center, tickets are $10 per person and available on Eventbrite. A portion of the proceeds will benefit the anti-plastic-waste non-profit Beyond Plastics. Tickets for a quilt raffle benefitting Beyond Plastics will also be available.
EveNSteve artists are extremely pleased to announce that their artwork entitled Each One a Soul has been acquired by the Bennington Museum in Bennington, Vermont. Part of an ongoing series entitled “The Battlefield,” Each One a Soul is a multi-panel photograph with hand-sewing and handwritten text that depicts scenes from the site of the Battle of Bennington and imagines a series of voices speaking about the battle from various points of view: from a combatant stealing a pocket watch, to a brass cannon that was named Molly Stark, to the earth of the field itself.
Each One a Soul has been acquired by the Bennington Museum
“(Each One a Soul) bring(s) a nearly 250 year old event, which was the impetus for the Museum’s founding, into the present day,” says Jamie Franklin, Director of Exhibitions and Collections. “We ⎼ as a Society, Country, and Community ⎼ continue to grapple with some of the same issues that concerned the soldiers who fought and lost their lives to guarantee us all ‘life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness’ nearly 250 years ago. As we approach the 250th anniversaries of America’s founding, the Revolutionary War, and the Battle of Bennington in the coming years, this work will help Bennington Museum bring history to life and make it relevant for contemporary audiences.”
Movie poster for the short film Each One a Soul
EveNSteve is the husband and wife team of author Eve O. Schaub and artist Stephen Schaub who are based in Pawlet, Vermont. As a Marine Gulf War Veteran, and recipient of the Navy Achievement Medal, Stephen Schaub brings to “The Battlefield” series a particular lived experience. 2021 marked the thirtieth anniversary of the First Gulf War. This milestone represents a pivotal moment in Schaub’s desire to grapple with the meaning of his own experience of both honor and trauma, through the frame of history and art.
Eve Schaub hand-applying text to the artwork
The Battle of Bennington took place on August 16, 1777, and was a small but significant Revolutionary War skirmish on the border of New York and Vermont.
Battlefield sites are preserved to connect us with the past. “The Battlefield” series invites viewers to ask: what has been learned? Does the land carry the memory of a battle the way a body carries trauma? Can it be used to heal? Using imagery of the site and text based on the battle’s history, filmmaker-artists EveNSteve invite the viewer to investigate and reimagine the battlefield as a place of ritual, healing and rebirth.
“The importance of studying history is recognizing the way that past decisions and actions affect us in the present,” says Bennington Museum Collections Manager Callie Raspuzzi. “This work asks important questions in a compelling and visually beautiful way.”
A short film is available on EveNSteve’s website that features Eve reading the text of the artwork while panning over the imagery, as well as images documenting the making of the artwork. For this and more information, please visit: EveNSteve.com
EveNSteve is excited to announce the opening of their newest outdoor exhibition, An Echo of Affection, which takes as its subject the covered bridges of Vermont and the stories we tell about them.
The exhibit is at the Hayfield Art Gallery at 671 River Road in Pawlet, Vermont, which is open dawn till dusk, free and open to the public. Works may be viewed by driving by or by walking the mown trail through the field. A response to the isolation demands of the pandemic, the Hayfield Art Gallery is the creation of EveNSteve, the husband and wife team of author Eve O. Schaub and artist Stephen Schaub.
Covered Bridges are the subject of the newest exhibition in Pawlet
“We wanted to focus on covered bridges in these new artworks,” says artist Stephen Schaub, “because they are special places; they are an unusual hybrid of indoors and out. They have a particular feeling to them, almost like a sacred space. And they represent transition: the moving from one stage to another. Which is very fitting, I think, for this moment in time.”
The artworks feature monumental photographs, “in-camera colleges on film” as Schaub terms them, coupled with brightly colored, hand-painted text which floats in and around the imagery. The photographs are mounted on large placards in the field so as to hold up to the elements and be visible from a distance.
One of five monumental artworks in the Hayfield Art Gallery
Also part of the exhibition, the Schaubs have installed what they call “the smallest covered bridge in the world,” which sits mid-exhibition and features information about the exhibit, as well as a shady spot to pause.
“We hope everyone will come out to see the exhibit whether just driving by, stopping for a walk, or bringing a picnic to enjoy the artwork and the landscape by the side of the beautiful Mettawee River,” says Eve Schaub.
It was in May of 2020 EveNSteve installed their first hayfield artwork entitled “My Heart is Very Big” on the land across the street from their home and art studio, as “a gift to our friends, neighbors, and community.” Over time the installation grew to encompass five monumental outdoor artworks in the field.
“What began as a temporary solution to reach viewers during quarantine has evolved,” Eve Schaub explains. “Now it is an exciting and creative way to reach new audiences. It brings our art out of the gallery and into everyday life.”
World’s Smallest Covered Bridge. Probably.
The Hayfield Art Gallery has been the subject of news stories on NBC Boston News 10, New England Cable News, WTEN Albany ABC, and WCAX Burlington CBS, as well as articles in Seven Days, the Rutland Herald, and the Times Argus.
EveNSteve’s outdoor art gallery is free and open to the public, open dawn till dusk; it is located at 671 River Road in Pawlet Vermont. An Echo of Affection will be on display until Spring of 2023. For more information visit their website at www.evensteve.com or call 802-287-0287.
pawletvermont.com 