The Sable Project, a nonprofit in Stockbridge, offers artist residencies where artists grow their own food and share their creations with the community.
A decade in, the project — founded by Vermont artist Otto Pierce — has evolved into a thriving community of artists from various disciplines.
This Friday, the project's culminating event is the "Fiddle Disco," with live music from Sable alum Elias Alexander and wood-fired pizza topped with vegetables grown on the Sable land.
Bex Love is The Sable Project's community engagement organizer. Love recently spoke with Vermont Public's Mary Williams Engisch and emphasized the importance of providing artists with uninterrupted time and space to create.
Love also shared their own art project they created: an enormous holstein puppet that shares a moniker with a French philosopher.
This interview was produced for the ear. We highly recommend listening to the audio. We’ve also provided a transcript, which has been edited for length and clarity.
Mary Williams Engisch: I'll start off by asking you about Sable Project. Where did the idea for it come from, and when did it get off the ground?
Bex Love: So the Sable Project was started by Otto Pierce, who is from Stockbridge. And he bought this piece of land and had this beautiful idea of, "What if there were a bunch of artists here?" Through time, through the 10 or 11 years that Sable has been happening, the woods on that land have been transformed and milled into wood for buildings and artist studios, and now it's grown into a large community where artists, of like you said, all disciplines, all stripes from all over come and stay and create art.
Mary Williams Engisch: How long have you been with Sable Project?
Bex Love: For the past two years, I've been working at Sable. And I was brought on because our "Food and Art Friday" events were picking up steam and growing to start to involve local artists and Sable alum to come back and be headlining artists.
My job there is the community engagement organizer, and I see that as like Sable's resident mushroom. I am there to create mycelial connections through the ground and bring nutrients in and help Sable to keep growing and sustain itself. And especially to help people come and other little mushrooms to come and enjoy the events and see what we have going on.
Mary Williams Engisch: Oh, I love that. Why do you think a model like this is important? Like, what can happen when artists have that time, that space, that sable project can provide?
Bex Love: Yeah, I think as an artist, I do my best work when it is quiet. I do my best work when I am like, tapped in to nature, tapped into — you could call it God, you could call it the universe.
And I think that you can be still, and there's nothing to do but to create. If you come to Sable, you can feel the power of that land. You can feel that like, "Whoosh!" and you can feel the, like, "Cheep, cheep, cheep!" And the land is like, brimming with creativity itself.
It's producing, it's making, and it's putting things out there and hoping they stick and hoping they flourish. And that is what the artists are there to do as well. So when you like are creating in harmony with that, and you can seek inspiration from that, I think it's a really beautiful thing.
Mary Williams Engisch: I'll ask you a little bit more about Sable in a sec, but I'd love to also spend a minute or two asking about Content Clown, which is part of your artistry and also part of Sable Ensemble. How was Content Clown born?
Bex Love: Yes, I'd like to say that I definitely was born a clown. And maybe we are all born clowns, and that the structures that are built to contain us, maybe was trying to make me not be that. And so, yes, Content Clown was born, actually, after Trump got elected.
I had been doing a lot of traditional work in the traditional regional theater model, doing a lot of shows that were about the social issues and are there to make people think. And I was like, "You know, this is all absurd. I think that the only thing that makes sense is to become a clown!"
And I think that what would be more radical than teaching people about the social issues would actually be to bring people joy and wonder. And I think that joy and wonder and play are actually a way in to dismantling the structures that are causing harm.
You know, a clown isn't a channel for play. It's a channel for permission to be everything that you're afraid that you are and told that you shouldn't be. I think that type of play is a type of subversion, and it can bleed out into the social structures as well.
But what the clown is there to do is to say, "Hmm, maybe actually, I can be disabled and queer and and all the things that I'm afraid that I am!" And so I hope that Content Clown is a permission system for me to be all of those things, to be the freak that I am. And that when folks interact with it, that they are also finding that permission in themselves.
Mary Williams Engisch: What performance did you take part in at Sable this year? I may or may not have seen some photos on Instagram of an enormous cow? Can you tell us more about that?
Bex Love: Yeah! So during our residency period, most artists that come to the land come to work on individual projects — whatever they want, anyone can apply. And there is a selection process.
Where "Water in the Wood," and the Sable Ensemble is a curated group of Sable alumni. And the founders of Sable are a part of the ensemble as well. And we come together to collaborate, and we come with seeds of ideas.
And this year, I built the biggest puppet I've ever built, and I'm so stoked about it! His name is Albert Cow Moo, loosely based off of the French philosopher Albert Camus.
It's interesting how, when in collaboration, the shape of the collaboration also shapes the piece, and there's a lot in that piece about balance and give and take and receiving and giving and exchanging of energy. And yeah, it's hard to describe the show, but there was a giant cow, and there was lots of water, and there was wood.
Mary Williams Engisch: But tell us about the gathering on Friday. What can people expect if they can grab tickets?
Bex Love: Elias Alexander is an amazing multi-instrumentalist who weaves together traditional Scottish and Irish and European folk sounds with his own original beats. So it is like a contra dance meets a rave! And we'll also have wood-fired pizza topped with veggies grown right on the Sable land.
Mary Williams Engisch: Very cool! Um, for painfully self-conscious people who want to also foster some radical joy and engage with their communities. How might you suggest that we be more playful and carefree?
Bex Love: I think that I learn the most about clowning from watching children and watching dogs do what they do! To access your play, I'd say go talk to your favorite 3-year-old, or go talk to your favorite dog and be an apprentice to their energy. They have yet to be contained by the social structures, hopefully. We hope that your favorite 3-year-old has not yet been worn down by the social structures.
Mary Williams Engisch: I don't know. Preschool is tough.
Bex Love: I know, totally! Maybe your favorite baby? As fresh as possible, the freshest baby you can find!
This Friday's "Fiddle Disco" begins at 5:30 p.m., at Fat Dragon Farm in Stockbridge.
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