A: Well, why not end up in Vermont? It’s a
very beautiful state. When we discovered
Vermont, Christine and I were living in
Connecticut in a suburban area that felt
like it was in the shadows of New York.
We were missing the beautiful landscapes
of England. Then we spent a weekend in
Vermont, and said “Hey, this place is pretty
nice. It has a different feel”. It was rural in
a way that Connecticut wasn’t. We came
up one weekend looking for a property
and ended up buying almost the first one
that we saw, an old dairy farm in Reading,
Vermont. A few years later another dairy
farm nearby came on the market so we
bought that as well. We owned it for some
time without really knowing what we were
going to do with it. Then Christine decided
that we should turn it into a place for an
artist-in-residence program. I took a look
at it when we were halfway into it and I
thought “My god…this is the perfect place
for a museum!” and our foundation took
it over. We opened it to the public about
four or five years ago.
Q: It was interesting that your original
intention was to make it into an artist-
-in-residence space and then decided
that the property was a more appropriate
space for a museum. People sometimes
have a difficult time with changing gears.
Thinking about an educational program is
one thing, but thinking about a museum
is a different scale. When you decided
to build a museum there, what was the
response?
A: We set up our foundation back in 2005
or 2006, and the first thing that we did was
the collaboration with Mass MoCA. The
idea then occurred to us to use the second
property that we had acquired in Vermont
as a further extension of the foundation.
It has been well received. We don’t get
an overwhelming number of visitors, but
from the visitors that do come, we only get
positive feedback.
Q: Are there any Vermont artists included
in the collection?
A: About three years ago, we started the
“Made in Vermont” exhibition series,
which we held in the visitor’s reception
area. This “Made in Vermont” series has
been well-received and reviewed by
various Vermont publications. For at least
two or three of the artists that we featured
in the shows, it helped to change the
trajectory of their careers.
Q: Art is one of those things that people
see as decoration. Some people see it as
a true “object”, while others see it as an
investment that they can keep in a storage
facility. I’m curious to hear your take on
it. You’ve mentioned art as decoration
for your home, you mentioned it in the
context of collecting it as an object for its
artistic value, and you’ve mentioned it as a
financial investment. What does art mean
to you?
A: To clarify, I don’t see art as purely an
investment in any sense. Paul Kasmin
was the New York art dealer who I knew
and mentioned earlier. Sadly, he recently
passed away. He was very influential in my
journey in the art world. He was the one
who told me that I shouldn’t view art as
conspicuous consumption. It’s not like
buying a fleet of Rolls Royce cars or a
private plane or boat. But art is something
that can hold its value over time and that
made me feel better about spending a
lot of money on it. However, my thought
process concerning investing money in
art was very different from the way I would
put money into stocks or bonds. It’s not
an investment mentality. There are a lot of
people whose approach and involvement
in art is exactly that—purely an
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