You may have seen the big green Arts Bus driving around Randolph. Not everyone knows what the big green bus (or the new mini bus) is about. Here's the story, and some news!
The Arts Bus got started in 2008 with a group of neighbors, artists and educators came together to try to find a way to get meaningful arts education to local children without someone having to drive them to it.
Working in partnership with the Chandler Center for the Arts, VTC (now VTSU), Norwich University School of Architecture and Art, and local artists including Phil Godenschwager, a plan was hatched to rehab and retrofit an old school bus into a mobile workshop space where fun and creativity could reign.
The Arts Bus has been visiting local schools, libraries and rec departments since 2010.
They make over 100 stops throughout towns in Central Vermont each year, giving over 2,000 children each year with "opportunities to explore their own innate creativity, irrespective of economic means or geographic proximity to an arts center."
Lately they've been working on a new partnership. The text below came from Dave Celone's newsletter Upper Valley VT/NH Musings. You can see the complete newsletter here.
Thanks to the Arts Bus for letting us use some of their photos for this article.
------
Vermont Law Review (VLR) students have partnered with The Arts Bus to bring a special art exhibit to the VLGS campus housed in the school’s Dean Shirley A. Jefferson Gallery titled “Me & We: Vermont’s Future State.” This locally-made art showcases more than 250 self portraits made by children throughout Central Vermont with help from The Art Bus in over 15 communities. A word from The Arts Bus…
It is a visual representation of the individuality and potential of each child and a meaningful look into the future." Each portrait literally puts a face on what is at stake at VLR’s symposium: the future of our children and our state…
Together, The Arts Bus and VLR’s symposium highlight the need for a holistic approach to safeguarding the next generation, combining legal advocacy and creative empowerment.
 |
Charlotte Bierie JD’25, the VLR symposium editor, also a student attorney at the VLGS Environmental Justice Clinic, had this to say about partnering with The Arts Bus:
The Vermont Law Review chose to partner with The Arts Bus because their mission, to inspire the Vermont community through art, complements our legal symposium’s mission. Our symposium will be various discussions on topics in the law that directly impact children, such as, the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA), the impact of AI as it pertains to child pornography, LGBTQ+ students, and child labor laws in the rise of social media. Our partnership with The Arts Bus connects Vermont communities to these discussions and encourages reflection on identity and collective storytelling, inspiring meaningful dialogue on the legal and societal issues impacting children. By integrating art with legal discussion, our aim was to engage members of the community, both personally and professionally, to explore solutions that resonate locally and beyond.
Many thanks to Charlotte and her VLR colleagues, and especially to The Arts Bus executive director Genny Albert of Brookfield, VT and her team who masterminded all this wonderful creativity! I and everyone at Vermont Law and Graduate School hope you’ll stop by to enjoy the “Me and We” show so many hundreds of little hands have created. And tune into or join in person the “Safeguarding Tomorrow” Symposium this coming Thursday at noon to learn more about the Indian Child Welfare Act and its implications.
VLGS’s Shirley A. Jefferson Gallery is free and open to the public. Come explore this powerful local art as a gift from our children to you. The “Me and We” Arts Bus/VLR art show will be up through October 11 after which local artist/sculptor Elizabeth Billings of Tunbridge, VT will display her cyanotypes.
Dave Celone is vice president of alumni relations & development at Vermont Law and Graduate School from which he graduated some years back. He enjoys watching law & grad students and local community members experience art in a non-traditional space like the Dean Shirley A. Jefferson Gallery on the VLGS campus in South Royalton.