To Sign Up Or Give A Gift Go to vt251. com
EXPERIENCE VERMONT
Since 1954, an organization of Vermont enthusiasts whose objective is to visit all of the state’ s towns and cities.
Now thousands of members strong and growing.
JOIN TODAY!
Sign up now online!
To Sign Up Or Give A Gift Go to vt251. com
email: thevt251club @ gmail. com
We’ re conveniently located on Rt. 9 just 2 / 10 mile west of Exit 2 off I-91 GOURMET TO GO FRESH PASTRIES VERMONT PRODUCTS
436 Western Ave. • Brattleboro, VT
802-257-9254 www. vermontcountrydeli. com
64 VERMONT MAGAZINE
Larger than Life
Today, the legacy of Alice, Emily, and Wolf continues to ripple through the arts in Vermont. Their influence is alive, not as a memory, but as a living current.
Together, the family’ s foundations carry forward that current through grants, exhibitions, and arts education. The Wolf Kahn Foundation supports artists and arts organizations that nurture creativity and access. The Emily Mason | Alice Trumbull Mason Foundation champions underrepresented voices in abstract art while preserving the work and archives of both women. Between them, they have provided critical funding to the Vermont Studio Center, the Brattleboro Museum and Art Center, River Gallery School, and countless community arts initiatives across the state.
For Melany, that spirit of generosity is both an inheritance and calling.“ My parents and grandmother believed that art should serve people,” she says.“ They saw creativity not as a luxury, but as a responsibility— a way to make the world a little better, a little more connected.” That belief is what animates the Brattleboro Festival of Miniatures. In its intricate dollhouses, handcrafted scenes, and community collaborations, one can glimpse a continuation of her family’ s undying artistic ethos: precision balanced with play, color meeting form, and artistry born from empathy.
The Farm: A Foundation of Creativity
The road to the Kahn / Mason family farmhouse winds up a gentle hill just west of downtown Brattleboro, where the bustle of Main Street gives way to open fields and wooded mountainsides.
Here, among 300 acres of rolling pasture and forest, stands John Stark Farm, a place that seems to hum with history and imagination.
The farmhouse itself dates back to the late 1800s.
When Melany Kahn’ s parents, Wolf Kahn and Emily Mason, bought the property in 1968, it was little more than a handbuilt relic of Vermont’ s agricultural past. There was no electricity, no running water, and only a woodstove to keep out the winter chill.“ We had a hand pump in the sink, a party line phone and kerosene lamps,” Melany recalls.“ We didn’ t even get electricity until 1972. We were one of the last houses in Vermont to get hooked up to the grid.”
The farm’ s original owner, John Stark, milked ten cows by hand and worked the land the old way, scything hay, hauling maple syrup, apples, and harvesting huge blocks of ice from the pond in winter. That same timeless, bucolic Vermont energy permeates everything throughout the property. Inside, the home is part family museum, part creative laboratory. Every wall holds a story: Paintings by Wolf Kahn, Emily Mason, and their peers; vintage quilts collected by Emily; and photographs of the family through the decades. In one room, bottles found on the farm filled with her father’ s pastel pigments gleam like jewels in the light. In Emily’ s bedroom, transcribed in her cursive, is a copy of Emily Dickinson’ s poem,“’ Hope’ is the thing with feathers” perched beside a Wolf Kahn landscape painting.
“ I think anyone who steps inside feels it,” Kahn says softly.“ You can sense the years of creative energy here. It’ s like the house itself wants you to make something.”
Down a narrow path behind the farmhouse sits Emily Mason’ s studio, a con-