was an unofficial mentor of mine , and he really played a pivotal role in helping to steer my life in a creative direction . David Gill was friends with the iconic mid-century architect and furniture designer George Nelson . George would visit Vermont annually , and I met him one year in a backyard in North Bennington . I sat at a picnic table and had an hour-long one-on-one conversation with George Nelson , which was set up by David Gill . George Nelson asked me what I wanted to do with my life , and it was an incredible experience . David Gill was also good friends with Benjamin Thompson , who designed the new building for Mount Anthony Union High School . The building was , in my opinion , a masterpiece architectural feat . Benjamin Thompson was part of The Architects Collaborative , which was a prestigious American architectural firm whose membership also included the famed German-American architect Walter Gropius . The Mount Anthony Union High School was designed in a high modernist style , and it accommodated pretty much all of Southwestern Vermont . I was elated to be in such a colorful environment . It was a very progressive high school at the time , and it had an amazing body of teachers . I was the first class to go from ninth grade to graduation from 1968 to 1971 , and I ’ m very proud of that .
ABOVE : L to R , Mike Wasco , Ruth Wasco , David Wasco & Jim Wasco . East Road , Shaftsbury , VT . 1968 . Photo by Lon Wasco
BELOW : “ Paul ’ s Fish Fry ” photo for David ’ s MAUHS D . U . O . project . “ Visual Pollution in Bennington ” 1970 . Photo by David Wasco
Sherman : There was recently an exhibition at the Bennington Museum that was all about Vermont in the 1960s . You mentioned that some of your photos were used in that exhibition .
David : When I was attending Mount Anthony Union High School , they had an off-site program called , “ Do Unto Others ” ( D . U . O .). There were about 20 students that were allowed to pick a community-based project that allowed us to get credit for our schoolwork while working outside of the physical walls of the high school . For my project , I documented and photographed visual pollution in and around Bennington County . There was a good part of my 10th grade school year where I didn ’ t actually physically go to school . I went around the community and took photographs of things that I thought were incongruous . Looking back , some of it was naive on my part ( and maybe not what I feel today ), but I did take many black and white photographs using a large format camera . As a result , I had these fantastic , almost Walker Evans-level black and white photographs . When the Bennington Museum decided to do an exhibit about Bennington in the 1960s , they reached out to me and asked if it was
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