Outdoor Exhibition in Pawlet Asks What Happens When You Defund the Arts?

23 Friday May 2025

Posted by Eve Ogden Schaub in Uncategorized

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art, artist, creativity, evensteve, exhibition, hayfield art gallery, outdoor art, painting, pawlet vermont, protest art

EveNSteve announce the opening of the sixth year of the Hayfield Art Gallery in Pawlet, Vermont with What Happens When You Defund the Arts?

“This is not the exhibition we were planning,” explains Eve Schaub of the show which she and her creative partner Stephen Schaub are calling an “art protest.”

The show’s centerpiece is a thirty-two-foot artwork with spray-painted letters reading “WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU DEFUND THE ARTS?”

“As the news of 2025 kept rolling in, we felt an urgency to address the rapidly shifting landscape in the world of the arts,” Schaub explains. “We wanted to create a space to pose important questions and contemplate what is happening.”

“Last year each taxpayer paid less than one dollar to support the NEA,” Stephen Schaub adds. “It is one of the largest arts funders in the U.S., yet it is also one of the smallest federal agencies. It does a tremendous amount of good with very little, yet the current administration is proposing to eliminate it entirely.”

The Schaubs cite drastic NEA cuts that have already affected Vermont institutions as varied as the Vermont Symphony Orchestra, the Flynn Theater and the Governor’s Institutes of Vermont.

“Creativity and the arts helped us through the time of the pandemic,” Stephen continues. “In fact, the outdoor Hayfield Art Gallery was born of our feeling of urgency to share art with our community in new, safe ways.”

“Art helped us then and it helps us now,” Eve explains. “Art helps us make sense of the world. We hope people will come from all over to engage in this deeply important question about support for creativity.”

EveNSteve, are the husband-and-wife team of author Eve O. Schaub and artist Stephen Schaub. They created the Hayfield Art Gallery in 2020 as a way to safely share art during the pandemic. Five monumental artworks compose the annual outdoor exhibition, including one that reaches thirteen feet in height and another that is over thirty feet long.

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.

Free and open to the public, the Hayfield Art Gallery may be viewed by driving by or by parking in the gallery lot and walking the mown trail through the field. Open dawn till dusk year-round, it is located at 671 River Road in Pawlet Vermont. What Happens When You Defund the Arts will be on display until Spring of 2026.

For more information visit their website at www.evensteve.com

Is the World’s Smallest Covered Bridge in Pawlet? New Art Show Opens

30 Thursday Jun 2022

Posted by Eve Ogden Schaub in arts, local event, Pawlet Happenings

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an echo of affection, covered bridges, hayfield art gallery, outdoor art, worlds smallest covered bridge

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.

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.

Hayfield Art Gallery: Artist Walk and Talk Sept. 18

03 Friday Sep 2021

Posted by Eve Ogden Schaub in arts, local event, Pawlet Happenings

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evensteve, hayfield art gallery, outdoor art, pawlet vermont events

The public is invited to a free Artist Walk and Talk on Saturday, Sept. 18 at 3PM at the Hayfield Art Gallery at 671 River Road in Pawlet. Early arrivers are welcome to picnic or stroll along the picturesque Mettawee River. Viewers of all ages are invited to come enjoy The Dollhouse Family and the Black Strawberry, currently on display.

The outdoor art gallery is the creation of EveNSteve, the husband and wife team of author Eve O. Schaub and artist Stephen Schaub, and was installed in the hayfield across the street from their home and art studio during 2020, as “a gift to our friends, neighbors, and community.”

“Art helps us to make sense of the world,” Eve Schaub said. “We both felt strongly that during times of uncertainty we need art more than ever.”

The artworks featured are monumental film photographs taken by Stephen, hand-painted with text written by Eve, and then attached to outdoor scaffolding to withstand the Vermont elements as best they can. They include one that reaches thirteen feet in height and another that is thirty-four feet long.

Since opening in 2020, the Hayfield Art Gallery has been the subject of news stories on NBC Boston News at Ten, New England Cable News, WTEN Albany ABC, WCAX Burlington CBS, and articles in Seven Days, the Rutland Herald, and the Times Argus.

The Dollhouse and the Black Strawberry, composed of six monumental works, is on display through spring of 2022.

“During the last year, our world, like that of so many people, had shrunk until it became more or less restricted to the size of our house.” Eve says. “We wanted to make a series of artworks that spoke to this unusual and fraught time, and my old childhood dollhouse reminded us that the process of play has much in common with the process of making art.”

Each work in the series features a different character from the Dollhouse Family and addresses a different theme: of looking outward, of looking inward, of transformation and revelation.\

The event will take place on Sept. 18 at 3 PM rain or shine. The Hayfield Art Gallery is free and open to the public. For more information please visit evensteve.com or call 802-287-0287.