From Phish tales to whales' tails, University of Vermont's public art makes an impression

Spring seems to have arrived, finally. It’s time to get out and enjoy that all-too-brief nice weather in northern Vermont.

That doesn’t mean you have to bypass art created by people to enjoy the art of nature. The University of Vermont campus is adding to its public art in a big way, placing thought-provoking works in easy-to-find locations on campus, one that will be busy with visitors for UVM graduation May 20.

UVM’s Fleming Museum of Art has a strong permanent collection and notable temporary exhibitions such as the current one celebrating the career of Vermont author/illustrator Alison Bechdel. Public art, though, brings works outside museum walls and onto grounds thousands of people walk daily.

More: The art and life of 'Fun Home' creator Alison Bechdel explored at UVM museum

“It’s important that we have public art across our campus as people go out and about,” said UVM President Tom Sullivan, who has ushered a public-art program onto campus that has seen five new works in the past couple of years. Most of that art is by UVM alumni, including one known for his work with the UVM-born rock band Phish.

UVM has displayed public art for generations, much of it traditional (statues on the university green of university founder Ira Allen and Revolutionary War hero Marquis de Lafayette, who in 1825 laid the cornerstone of the Old Mill building) or self-referential (a Catamount statue near Bailey-Howe Library illustrating the school nickname). The new works join extant pieces that hit the sweet spot between appealing to look at and intriguing to think about.

“University life and education should be about educating and provoking life-long learning and thinking and critical analysis,” Sullivan said. “Art and the humanities really help enrich. But we’ve got to bring it to the people, so to speak.”

The Burlington Free Press joined Janie Cohen, director of the Fleming Museum of Art, on a more-or-less clockwise walking tour Monday of that public art. We begin outside the Fleming’s front door…

‘Kindred Spirits’

George Smith was a professor of sculpture at Rice University in Houston and UVM artist-in-residence in 1990 and 1991. He created “Kindred Spirits,” installed as two inverted cones outside the Fleming. Cohen said the black steel forms were inspired by minimalism and African architecture.

One morning long after the two pieces were installed, Cohen said, a smaller one showed up as part of the display. She said no one ‘fessed up right away until an employee acknowledged finding the smaller one in storage and putting it in its rightful place near the other two.

“It was like they had a baby,” Cohen said.

‘Lamentations’

The late artist Judith Brown contributed this group of pieces that can be seen by walking a few steps to the left from the Fleming’s front door and then to the right, in a small grove of black locust trees. Brown, who worked in Reading and New York City, based “Lamentations” on a dance work by Martha Graham.

Cohen said Brown created “Lamentations” from automotive metal that didn’t weather well, so the 1989 work recently had to be sent to southern Vermont for restoration. The group has been broken up by construction at UVM and the UVM Medical Center; only two of the original five female figures are in place now, corralled by chain-link fencing, while three others will return once construction is complete.

A short stroll beneath the arch at the new Central Campus Residence Hall leads to the next work.

‘Bus Ball’

Lars Fisk is a 1993 UVM graduate best known for his work at festivals featuring Phish, the jam band that formed at UVM in the 1980s. “Bus Ball,” one of the newer pieces on campus, is pretty much what the name promises – a yellow school bus that looks like someone grabbed it and rolled it into a 6-foot-diameter sphere. It even has green-leatherette seating inside, according to Cohen, though that was not visible through condensation on the window Monday morning.

The ball balances on a knoll behind the Hills Agricultural Science Building. “It’s such a collective icon of many of our childhoods,” Cohen said of “Bus Ball.” “(Fisk) was influenced by pop art. I love what he’s done with that sensibility.”

‘Sparkle Pony’

Fellow UVM alum Kat Clear, Class of 2001, has her metal work on display throughout Burlington, including a bike rack made to look like a combination lock stationed outside Burlington Telecom on Church Street. “Sparkle Pony,” another new addition a short distance from “Bus Ball” between the Davis Center and Bailey/Howe Library, is made from a foundation of metal but covered in an unconventional artistic material – artificial turf.

Cohen said Clear grew up in the “My Little Pony” era, and her lush green rocking horse captures that whimsical spirit. Visitors can even sit on the faux-topiary; matted-down turf on the pony’s back indicate that many have done just that.

‘Primavera’

Nothing says spring like “Primavera,” this 2010 sculpture by Dorset native and 1975 UVM alum Richard Erdman that’s in front of James Jeffords Hall, which houses the departments of plant biology and plant and soil science. “Primavera” is the Italian word for spring, and Erdman’s bronze sculpture depicts what appears to be a plant about to burst out in bloom.

The sculpture is surrounded by a garden designed by a botany student. When the plants flourish this spring, Cohen said, they will reveal colors complementary to the art while lying low enough to not obstruct Erdman’s work.

‘Flukes’

Nearby, made of similarly-toned bronze, Gordon Gund’s “Flukes” shows whales’ tails, though more abstractly than the Jim Sardonis whales’-tail sculpture along Interstate 89 in South Burlington. Cohen said Gund, a businessman and sports-franchise owner whose two sons attended UVM, continues to create art despite losing his sight.

Cohen said Gund made “Flukes” after a pod of whales beached near his house in Nantucket. He pushed on their tails to try to get them back into the ocean, Cohen said, and based his sculpture on memory and the texture of the tails. Gund recently donated “Flukes” to the university, and has also contributed $6 million toward what is now UVM’s Gund Institute for Environment.

‘Arete Blu’

This 2016 piece, also by Richard Erdman, is among UVM’s newest acquisitions. The best way to find it after “Flukes” is to go in the Davis Center’s third-floor entrance, down to the second floor and to the opposite end of the building onto the student center’s “green” roof, where the Brazilian blue-granite work rests.

The mottled-blue sculpture twists its way double-helix-like toward the sky, which on Monday’s clear-blue morning made it seem like a natural part of the environment. Cohen noted that the smooth, gleaming textures of Erdman’s two works and Gund’s “Flukes” create a common, compelling thread.

“They’re so sensual,” she said, “the feeling of them, the smooth surfaces.”

‘Tree of Knowledge’

The late sculpture professor Paul Aschenbach created “Tree of Knowledge” in 1961. Are those tree limbs climbing upwards, or are they the fingers of university students reaching out in search of knowledge?

The copper sculpture soars near the library, where students often pursue that knowledge. On one of the season’s first warmish days Monday, many of those students were sunning themselves on the library’s steps. “Bailey/Howe Beach,” Cohen called it.

‘Unlocked’

Walk by Bailey/Howe, past Royall Tyler Theatre and onto the University Green and you’ll find… a rock. From afar it resembles an unobtrusive, low-lying boulder, but get closer and you discover that Christopher Curtis’ “Unlocked” is a piece of granite slightly separated from itself in a jigsaw-puzzle style not unlike the “Democracy” sculpture off Main Street in downtown Burlington.

Curtis, a 1974 UVM alum, created a piece with a similar theme to “Tree of Knowledge,” suggesting there are secrets of knowledge to be unlocked on campus. The 2009 work has acquired additional contour thanks to lichen that has affixed itself to the rock and the vagaries of sun and shadow on its shape.

“I love how the light plays with this,” Cohen said.

‘Barn Ball’

This tour began at the Fleming Museum, so why not end there? The Fleming has a collection worth visiting, but if you’re short of money and/or time, the public-art tour is a good way to get your fill of art.

You can go just inside the Fleming’s lobby without paying admission to view one last free-of-charge sculpture, another orb by Lars Fisk. Phish fans will especially appreciate “Barn Ball,” as it’s depicted on the 2002 Phish album “Round Room.”

Cohen reached behind the ball Monday to plug it in. The lights inside came on, revealing through the ball’s window piles of hay lining its walls. Like all the art on the UVM walking tour, “Barn Ball” makes its mark with subtle surprises.

If you go

WHAT: “Self-Confessed! The Inappropriately Intimate Comics of Alison Bechdel”

WHEN: Through May 20

WHERE: Fleming Museum, University of Vermont, Burlington

ADMISSION: $3-$10 museum admission, free for museum members; faculty, staff and students of UVM, Champlain College and the Community College of Vermont; and children 6 and under. 656-0750, www.uvm.edu/~fleming/

Contact Brent Hallenbeck at 660-1844 or bhallenbeck@freepressmedia.com. Follow Brent on Twitter at www.twitter.com/BrentHallenbeck.