"Pumpkintown: Songs, Stories and Magic Lantern Projections from an Imaginary New England Village" Comes to Putney

"Pumpkintown: Songs, Stories and Magic Lantern Projections from an Imaginary New England Village," comes to Putney's Next Sage Arts on Saturday, Oct. 12. In connection with the exhibition "The In Between," which features artwork by Susan Brearey and Duane Slick, on display at the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center (BMAC) until October 19, Pumpkintown was born after musician Tim Eriksen visited artist Susan Brearey's classes at the Putney School. It evolved from their shared interest in blending visual elements with folk music and storytelling. As part of the show, acclaimed American folk musicians Tim Eriksen and Peter Irvine perform music on multiple instruments, along with paintings and magic lantern projections by Susan Brearey, to tell a uniquely compelling story. It has been performed around the globe more than 30 times in the last 12 years, from the West Coast to Boston, to Great Britain, France, Sweden and the Czech Republic. In Pumpkintown, Brearey's use of a magic lantern (a pre-electric slide projector) projects onto her art, creating a unique multimedia experience. The theatrical backdrop for Pumpkintown is one of Brearey's paintings, which, she says, "shows the intersection of nature and culture in rural New England." SUSAN BREAREY - ARTIST Brearey grew up on the coast of Maine in Cape Porpoise, in a rural, lobstering harbor where she spent lots of time exploring several natural, uninhabited and protected islands. In 1988 she received her B.A. in French literature and studio arts from The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington. She spent her junior year abroad in Lyon, France studying French literature and philosophy. She then attended Rhode Island School of Design where she received an M.F.A. in painting and printmaking in 1994. Her career at the Putney School began in 1991 when she answered a call for a part-time art teacher. After spending 32 years teaching drawing and painting, taking students to New York City to visit artist studios and exhibitions, leading trips to France and curating top notch exhibitions for the school, she says, "I had the great opportunity to retire with my son Beau, who graduated in June 2022." Brearey was awarded a fellowship as a visiting artist and scholar at the American Academy in Rome that same year. Her new pieces from Rome made it back from Italy and are in the current exhibit at BMAC. "As a stroke of luck, I became aware of Tim (Eriksen) at the 50th anniversary of the Newport Folk Festival," says Brearey. Years later, as she curated shows at The Putney School's Michael S. Currier Center Gallery, she brought in artists, writers, dancers and musicians from all over. She brought in a show from the New England folk music archives celebrating the Cambridge coffeehouses of the 1960s. Several musicians in the show had attended Putney School including Debby Green (who taught Joan Baez and Mimi Fariña to play guitar) and John Byrne Cooke of the Charles River Valley Boys and road manager of Janis Joplin. "We decided we needed live music to come to the school for this particular show and my friend, Betsy Siggins, Club 47 musical whiz, suggested Tim Eriksen. He was phenomenal and that led to a long friendship since 2011," Brearey adds. "We've had a good run, and we joke that with Pumpkintown we are not "low budget but no budget." We have no manager, we keep getting invited to perform and we like it that way," Brearey says. When describing the actual show, Brearey notes, "It's quite a magical stage setup including a trunk that the story funnily, musically and effectively comes out of, including an 1880 magic lantern which I use to project images onto my hand painted backdrop." "All of the slides are my paintings. I've worked with some old historical slides that I've altered to fit out stories. I've made tiny 1 by 7-inch glass slides which (is) like working on a painstakingly detailed etching," says Brearey. "We're using 18th century technology to illustrate and portray the stories Tim is telling which are of an imaginary New England village with many a humorous anecdote. Tim and Peter are playing old New England tunes, Southern Appalachian tunes, songs of love and the sea. We also use a recording of peepers, frogs, crickets and birds," Brearey adds. "What I love is that its low tech, and people's attention spans miraculously come back and they look and listen. There is nothing digital about it. It's a reminder that we don't need all the fancy frills of technology to convey a story in a beautiful way," says Brearey. TIM ERIKSEN - MUSICIAN Acclaimed musician and multi-instrumentalist Tim Eriksen lives in Amherst, Mass. and is the Joseph E. and Grace W. Valentine visiting assistant professor of music at Amherst College and the musician in residence for Historic Deerfield, Mass. Although primarily a singer, he plays banjo, fiddle, guitar, veena (a member of the lute family) and bajo sexto (a 12-string Mexican bass). "I've always had instruments lying around the house. We had a broken guitar which I messed around with and an out-of-tune piano," says Eriksen. The self-taught musician has been playing hardcore punk since he was a kid, growing up in St. James, N.Y. His punk band, "Stands for Nothing," only plays one show per year. His love of singing sacred harp — shape note music — began when he studied South Indian classical vocal music for his undergraduate degree at Amherst College where he received a B.A. in music in 1988. He did graduate work at Wesleyan University where he graduated in 1993 with a degree in early New England Music. Eriksen received a Ph.D. from Wesleyan University in 2015. Asked about the origin of Pumpkintown, he says, "The show is based in New England folk songs and my own songs. It's partly improvised based on my understanding of growing up in New England and my sense of the culture and my research." "The songs are a combination of traditional folk songs with interesting arrangements, some shape note tunes from the 19th century and my own songs," adds Eriksen. He explains that shape note is a four-part harmony tradition that is, "A living social music practice that has roots in 18th century New England. It's an American thing with connections to British culture but influenced by a number of areas of American culture, including Native American and African practices." He compares Pumpkintown to a stand-up routine and a historical lecture. Eriksen is joined in this performance by Peter Irvine, of Northampton, MA who plays percussion, glockenspiel and does sound design for the show. When asked about the connection between the performance and Susan Brearey's art exhibit, Eriksen says, "It has to do with New England, the woods, the villages, the unseen presences and questions that sense of the in between — the liminal spaces — between past and future and the woods and the town." "It's a contemporary place which has bits of history in it. All these little towns like Alstead and Winchester. There are echoes by wisps of people who came before, mysteries to be solved and mysteries to be opened up," says Eriksen. DETAILS In connection with the exhibition "The In Between," which features artwork by Susan Brearey and Duane Slick, the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center (BMAC) presents "Pumpkintown: Songs, Stories, and Magic Lantern Projections from an Imaginary New England Village," on Saturday, Oct. 12 at 7 p.m. at Next Stage Arts Project in Putney, Vt. This all-ages show is 90 minutes. Admission is $25, $20 for BMAC members. Next Stage Arts Project is located at 15 Kimball Hill in Putney, Vt. For more information or to buy tickets, visit https://www.nextstagearts.org/events-calendar.html For more information, visit www.brattleboromuseum.org or call (802) 257-0124 x101.