Bread & Puppet and Balsam Fir
I’m happy to hear of the proposed New Vrindaban devotee excursion to see a Bread & Puppet performance. At my first Vermont College (then part of Norwich Univ.) residency, our group adviser took us to Glover to visit the B & P home base. Glover is in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom, so named because it is the part of the Vermont that retains the most of the unspoiled rural qualities that used to be common to the whole state.
The giant puppet heads, bodies, and other paraphernalia are housed in an ancient barn. They are upstairs, and the downstairs is devoted to the colorful and primitive woodblock prints that the group has printed. Outside one can see the hand-built molds for casting the puppets. I believe that they contain straw and perhaps clay. I’m not sure. The barn is completely open to the public (or was when we visited in fall 1999). One leaves money there for donations or to purchase prints, even if no one is around, as was the case with us.
The German-born founder lives in an adjacent house that is off-limits. Some of the puppets were on a vegetarian/no-kill theme. They are so overwhelming up close, and left such an impression upon me that my sleep that night was full of dreams about them.
Our adviser took us across the road to where the festivals used to be held. We wandered freely over the site, and I was drawn to a fragrant stand of balsam fir (abies balsamea), which is one of my favorite fragrances. Unfortunately, my yard only sports an eastern hemlock, which cannot compare, either in depth of green or in scent.
My culminating semester adviser at Vermont College was Annemie Curlin, a Vermont artist. She has painted a wonderful scene of a Bread & Puppet festival, and reproduction prints of it are for sale on her website, www.annemiecurlin.com.
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