RutlandHerald.com - We Are Vermont

They were framed

Artist brings Vermont landscapes to city's courthouse

Annemie Curlin visited Vermont more than 30 years ago from her native Austria and decided to move to the state and pursue her career as an artist.

Now, after three decades of living in the Green Mountain State she said an art project featuring nearly 20 paintings of Rutland County communities she recently completed for the Rutland District and Family Courthouse has made her feel even more at home here.

"All along the way there was so much help," Curlin said of the art project that involved several meetings with community members to learn the county's history, landscape and unique qualities. "It was so positive. People were so willing to share and participate. It's made me a Vermonter."

People attending criminal or family court hearings or stopping in at the Rutland courthouse on the corner of Merchants Row and State Street can now take in a unique and colorful view of several towns in Rutland County depicted by Curlin in the paintings.

Earlier this month a reception and dedication ceremony took place at the courthouse for the unveiling of Curlin's completed project. The courthouse opened in April 2005, and many of the paintings have been installed for some time while others were recently put in place.

Curlin's paintings are part of the Art in State Buildings program, started in the early 1990s when the Legislature funded artwork and other architectural enhancements for certain state buildings projects.

Curlin's project includes oil paintings, with several based on aerial views showing the landscapes as well as printed historical notes from towns across Rutland County.

Alexander Aldrich, Vermont Arts Council executive director, said this week he was taken aback by the research and detail that went into Curlin's project.

"She got engaged in the courthouse being, for better or worse, a public gathering place," Aldrich said. "She wanted to tell the stories of all the towns and get a very good feel for the communities and reflect it in the images she created and in doing that it led her on this very wonderful journey."

The paintings hang on the walls of the corridors and waiting areas of the second and third floors of the three-story courthouse.

Curlin, who lives in Charlotte, studied art at several colleges and universities from Vienna, Austria, to Bordeaux, France. Also, she has served on the faculty of Trinity College in Burlington and the Vermont College of the Union Institute in Montpelier.

She said through the art project for the courthouse she has learned a great deal about Vermont, its history and people. Curlin's proposal was selected more than three years ago from more than 20 submissions for the $12,000 state grant for the project.

"These paintings depict the surface patterns and forms of recognizable locales," her proposal read, "allowing viewers to see the calligraphy of roads and railroad lines, the mosaic of fields, the surprising attractiveness of industrial landscape in unaccustomed ways, seeing order and beauty where they may not be apparent on the ground."

Curlin's paintings join another Art in State Buildings program project by Newfane sculptor James Florschutz featuring a series of slate panels and sand-blasted grids of glass displaying Rutland streets. It greets people on the first-floor lobby walls as they walk into the building.

Curlin's paintings are broken up into different groups, including three paintings depicting different locations in Rutland City. Shown in the paintings are the neighborhood in the area of State Street and East Brook, another of the railroad spur near the old Howe Scale facility, and the third displays historic downtown and Center Street.

"Each one of the paintings has aerial views and each one of the paintings has a little bit of historic detail painted in," Curlin said. "For instance, the current railroad yard has painted in how the railroad yard looked 100 years ago with this big round house with a big golden dome. It looked quite impressive."

In addition, there are eight smaller paintings of several towns in Rutland County.

"I picked places that looked graphically interesting," she said. "All of them had a little bit of history painted in."

The third group of paintings include "two community maps," one showing Mendon and the other depicting Proctor. The two paintings, each measuring 30 by 30 inches, are done in mixed media, including oil paint and ink.

A look at the Proctor painting reveals several tidbits from the town's history.

"Since the 1930s our basketball team, the Phantoms, frequently were the Vermont State champions," one note on the painting reads accompanied by images of athletes in action.

Another note in the same painting next to an image of a swimming area stated, "The swimming pool was originally dug in 1884 with big scoops and horses to provide drinking water for the town."

Curlin said she worked with community members in the various towns depicted in the paintings to research the history of the communities.

"People told me many, many things, of events that happened, buildings that are already gone and not there anymore," she said. "They also told about things that are still there and things they value."

Curlin said she then began putting the paintings together with the help of topographic maps of the communities.

"Then I drew and painted in everything that people told me," she said. "I find these community maps are really a tremendous tool for community building."

In addition, a fourth part of the project includes paintings dedicated to the slate industry in western Rutland County.

All the paintings can be viewed at the courthouse, which is open to the public. Also, the paintings are expected to be posted soon on Curlin's Web site, www.annemiecurlin.com.

Curlin said she is optimistic her project will make trips to the courthouse a little more comforting.

"Most people don't have happy reasons to go to court," Curlin said. "I hope with these paintings they get a little pride and feel they are in the presence of something beautiful that relates to their home."

Contact Alan J. Keays at alan.keays@rutlandherald.com.