Carolyn Shapiro

In fact, it is a collection of junk, but a purposeful one. Called the “New England Barns Found Objects Collection: An Ever-Expanding Community Curated Archive,” this exhibition consists of items from residents around the region who dug them out of farm sheds or surrounding fields.

The Museum of Everyday Life is exactly that. It chronicles and highlights the mundane, utilitarian, insignificant objects of our existence and makes them remarkable.

Past shows have focused on the toothbrush, the safety pin, bells and whistles and even dust. The current special exhibition, which closes in May, features locks and keys. The next yearlong show, a rumination on scissors, opens in June.

In a part of rural Vermont known as the Northeast Kingdom, the museum sits next to the home of Clare Dolan, its founder, curator and self-described “chief operating philosopher.” An artist and puppeteer, she started the museum in 2011 after clearing out her barn and choosing the first exhibition topic: the match. Some items from that show that remain on display include a violin that a prison inmate made from wooden matchsticks (it really plays), an array of matchbooks from across the globe and a roller coaster reproduction constructed of paper matches.

Her goal is to recognize the extraordinary in the ordinary. “We need to celebrate what is mundane and ordinary but beautiful,” Dolan said.

Not in a major city or even a town center, the museum occupies a 70-year-old barn in the middle of nowhere. It does not display its collection in a pristine environment on stark walls but in a rickety wooden structure with a leaky roof and no heat.

It has no security guards to protect its art. Indeed, one piece went missing last spring, and a small placard was put in its place, admonishing museumgoers not to steal.

Visitors turn the lights on when they arrive, and off when they leave. There is no charge for admission, although there is a wooden box for donations. In recent months, the visitors’ book has logged names from as far away as Sweden.

Inside, an unusual, thoughtful and carefully curated selection of works reveals what Dolan calls the “storytelling power” of common objects.

“The museum is a way for me to think about things I want to think about,” she said.

For the locks and keys exhibition, Dolan interviewed locksmiths, researched history and studied deadbolt design. She has included an installation about escape artists like Harry Houdini, an explainer on chastity belts and a trompe l’oeil scene of Gramercy Park in Manhattan, a private space that is open only to those who live nearby. That piece is accompanied by a recorded interview with Arlene Harrison, the keeper of the keys to the park’s gate.

“Part of the magic of a really great exhibit is it operates on different levels,” said Richard Saunders, an art history professor at Middlebury College in Vermont and director of its Museum of Art. “Who would do an exhibit on dust? Then you begin to think about it.”

In late January, Luke Burton drove over to the Museum of Everyday Life with his father, William Burton, who lives an hour away in Barre, Vermont. “It’s just a reminder to pay attention to the little things,” Luke said of the museum.

“What’s interesting about keys is they are either extremely important or totally useless,” William said. He added: “You hold it in your hand. You keep it in your purse. Keys are imbued with the spirit of you.”

Dolan, 52, bought her house on a “super-old derelict farm” in 2004 and envisioned the barn as an art and performance space. In 2010, Glover celebrated the 200th anniversary of a momentous local event known as the Legend of Runaway Pond, when the village center was flooded, but no one died. Dolan staged a Runaway Pond exhibition in her barn, opening the door for the Museum of Everyday Life.

Ideas for the subjects of the museum’s shows often start with an intriguing suggestion or donation. The toothbrush exhibition was inspired by a writer in Montpelier, Vermont, who gave Dolan a box packed with toothbrushes and other dental accessories. A regular contributor to the collection later donated a toothbrush with a handle shaped like a svelte woman; the brush was the woman’s head.

Pieces from each special exhibition become part of the museum’s permanent collection. “I’m never going to run out of subject matter, and it’s always going to be accessible,” Dolan said.

To earn a living, Dolan is a nurse in an intensive-care unit at a nearby hospital. She remains a disciple of, and an occasional performer for, Bread &amp; Puppet Theater, also in Glover, which produces politically charged shows featuring giant papier-mâché figures. In addition, she helps organize an annual traveling festival, Banners and Cranks, which celebrates the ancient art form of cantastoria, a performance of sung narration accompanied by painted panels. One type of cantastoria, called a cranky, is a scroll that unfurls with a crank.

Ursula Populoh, a 77-year-old textile artist and puppeteer in Baltimore, is a cranky enthusiast who became what Dolan calls a “philosopher in residence” at the museum. Visiting philosophers live in an efficiency apartment in another part of the barn while working on a project.

During her residency in August 2017, Populoh created two crankys and tended Dolan’s vegetable garden. She also acted as a Museum of Everyday Life guide.

“This valuing of what we use daily is so absent in our culture and is represented in Clare’s museum,” Populoh said.

Dolan now hopes to seek some outside funding. She would like to hire an employee to help run the museum, and the barn needs maintenance. “It would be good to not have the roof leak,” she said.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/12/arts/design/museum-of-every-day-life-vermont.html" id="35477b27-314d-3d2f-ae7e-1f885b7cbfaa">The New York Times</a>.

GLOVER, Vt. — The entryway of the rundown barn that houses the Museum of Everyday Life looks like a collection of junk — an old pink toilet, gas cans, rusty farm tools.

Where Some See Trash, She Sees Treasure

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Carolyn Shapiro

Articles written by the author

Where Some See Trash, She Sees Treasure

Where Some See Trash, She Sees Treasure