Spring/Summer 2026 Newsletter

Current Exhibition — Ray Brown at The Gallery at CVMC — Transformative Moves II

Photos: NNEMoCA File Photos

NNEMoCA is pleased to announce an exhibition of the works of beloved Central Vermont artist, the late Ray Brown at The Gallery at Central Vermont Medical Center (CVMC). Ray and his wife Jody owned and ran The Drawing Board in Montpelier for many decades, and an artist community and resource center developed around it.

Ray studied at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan before becoming a printmaker in Boston. He taught for a short time in Quincy, Massachusetts, created ceramic works of art, and even started a business with a friend making gilded wooden bas reliefs of fish in Stowe, Vermont before settling into the largest arc of his career as an artist: painting and drawing.

He loved to capture the architectural elements in the rural landscape. Ray seemed to have a particular fondness for barns and depicted them as agrarian landscape elements as well as color studies. His landscape works had a huge fan base, and they would sell almost as quickly as they were presented to the public. These were sensitive, jewel-like canvases, and although very successful with this line of work, Ray often said that he wished he could loosen up his style.

In 2006 he had a massive stroke which affected his dominant side. Ray could not imagine being unable to continue to work in his studio daily, as he had done for over 20 years, so he trained his non-dominant hand to learn to paint. For the next 14 years, he created an entirely new body of work incorporating color as a landscape element in a manner bordering on synesthesia. This was precipitated by annual Italian trips that Ray and Jody made for a number of years. The light and landscape elements there had a profound impact on Ray’s painting. These works are colorful, abstract, and joyous celebrations.

The house and barn forms started re-emerging back into these creations in an entirely new manner. Interestingly, the last body of works that were created reference earlier pre-stroke works. Ray painted from photographs and from his earlier sketchbooks. These last works have a strong connection to his landscape paintings executed before his stroke. There is a panel in this exhibition that illustrates this well with paintings from both periods side-by-side.

This may be the last complete retrospective survey show of the artwork of the community treasure that is Ray Brown. The exhibition is now up and open to the public. It will continue to be on view until July 18, 2026, at The Gallery at CVMC, 130 Fisher Road, Berlin, VT 05602. There will be an opening reception on Thursday, June 4^th from 4:30 – 6: 00 PM.

Future Exhibition Plans — Mail Art Exhibition
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1) We are planning to present a major exhibition of Mail Art and related works early next year. NNEMoCA’s collection is very strong in this medium. As has been reported previously reported in this newsletter, we have been working with Stuart Copans a/k/a Shmuel, an extraordinary mail artist in Brattleboro, Vermont, who has been practicing within this discipline for over 50 years. We have been organizing, inventorying, and documenting his mail art archive for the past two years, and are probably about halfway through completing this project. This material is invaluable as it spans a significant portion of time representing the development of interest in this art form. Also, back in late 2017, we acquired the Gina Lotta Post ArtiStamp Museum and Archive. This was the first North American institution to focus on collecting Artists’ Stamps (ArtiStamps). This very specialized museum was the brainchild of Ginny Lloyd a/k/a Gina Lotta Post from Jupiter, Florida. Both this medium and Mail Art are widely acknowledged in Europe, Latin America, and Japan, but are just gaining traction here. Finally, we also acquired the CrackerJack Kid Mail Art Zines Network Archive from Chuck ‘CrackerJack Kid’ Welch of Peterborough, New Hampshire, beginning around 2015. This is one of the most extensive archives of zines created post-1960, dealing with Mail Art and other related Neo-Dada topics in North America. CrackerJack is a recognized practitioner and scholar in this field, having written numerous popular and scholarly articles and books on these topics. Parts of his archive are at the Getty as well as the Archives of American Art at the Smithsonian, in addition to NNEMoCA.

All three of these archives, which are now part of NNEMoCA, are far reaching in terms of their scope both artistically and geographically and represent tremendous resources for future research. These archives combined with other works in these same mediums already present in our collection represent over 12,000 works. There are also several hundred items within the Reference Library at NNEMoCA that are directly related to these topics. Given the interest that we have and the strength of our holdings in these areas of creativity, it is time to share this with the public. Please stay tuned!

Future Exhibition Plans — Nye Ffarrabas Traveling Exhibitions
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Photos: NNEMoCA File Photos.

2) We are working to mount a series of traveling exhibitions based on the Nye Ffarrabas: Truth IS A Verb! show that we presented at the Brattleboro Museum and Art Center last year. We are targeting colleges and universities in the Northeast that were involved in and/or have institutional holdings in works from the Fluxus, as well as a New York City based operating foundation with deep roots in this area of interest. Of course, we will inform you as the tour unfolds.

Legacy Tribute — John Matusz
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On Left: NNEMoCA File Photo. On Right: Courtesy of Studio Place Arts.

We wish to acknowledge the life and accomplishments of John A. Matusz of Waitsfield, Vermont, who recently passed away. John was the kind of person that was very easy to love. His smile and laugh were infectious, and he had a network of family and friends that were committed to each other. John had an engaging personality and a zest that he exhibited for the activities in which he engaged. John was best known as a sculptor, but he also had well-developed skills in drawing, painting, and assemblage.

NNEMoCA is working with John’s family to create a small tribute show of works from some of these less well-known mediums.

We wish all of those in John’s immediate circle peace and closure, as well as an ongoing appreciation for all that represents John.

Curation – an Educational Initiative

On Left: A Portion of the Robert 'Hoff' Hoffman Harmonica Case Collection at NNEMoCA.
On Right: Avant Garde & Artists' Book Dealer Yoshi Hill Visits The Reference Library at NNEMoCA.
NNEMoCA File Photos.
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We are beginning to work on a program to incorporate curation into late secondary school art education. Art education to this point has consisted almost exclusively of art making by students. What is wrong with that? Nothing, but it assumes that everyone is a ‘maker.’

Curation is not widely acknowledged as a creative process. It is. Undertaking the process of curation creates a direct understanding of and appreciation for art that is distinct from art making.

Most people definitely benefit from the opportunity to actively engage in art making, but most will end up believing that this “isn’t for them” over time. How sad that this often translates later in life to many deciding that they are not creative or that art is not part of their lives. Having an alternate path to creativity, while not a complete solution to this dilemma, has the potential to make significant inroads towards spanning this gap.

We are in the process of creating an informal group of advisors for this project. If this is an area that is of interest to you or if you have substantive thoughts related to this issue, please reach out to us.

Acknowledgements and Shameless Promotion Section

NNEMoCA exists to transform and enrich humanity through visual art and ideas. This is clearly a tall order and one that cannot be accomplished by us alone. We invite you to consider a gift to NNEMoCA to enable us to continue the good work which we have just started. In 4.5 years, we have created, mounted, and presented 13 exhibitions, 4 long term installations of work, written a book, and published a list of artists and their pseudonyms a list serve which is popular amongst this group of practitioners, thereby expanding the knowledge base of this field. We have worked actively with 15 artist legacies, providing expanded recognition, safe future homes, organized archives, photographic documentation, and in some cases publications, as well as comfort and closure to families and other related parties.

We wish to acknowledge and thank the following individuals and institutions for their recent support of NNEMoCA:

Anonymous [2], La Thoriel Badenhausen, John Brickels, Jody Brown, Paul Calter, Eve-Jacobs Carnahan, Bill Cohn, Jeffrey Cooper, Stuart Copans, Joan Curtis, Shawn and Ali Dumont, Juliana Fechter, Jeff Feld, Nye Ffarrabas, Gerard Ferrari, Cheryl King Fischer, Foley Services, Inc., Leslie Fry, Gisela Gamper, Frankie Gardiner, Chip Haggerty, Catherine Hall, Bob Hannum, Stephany and Bruce Hasse, Paul Hertz and James Rauchman, Tyche Hendricks, Jonathan Hodgkin and Ann Laberge, Johnine Hoehn, Christopher Jeffrey, John Killacky, Eleanor Lanahan, Kristen L’Esperance, Mary Fran Lloyd, Linda Maney, Lynn Haskins Matott, Katharine Montstream, Orah Moore, Motion Fund/Community Foundation of Western Massachusetts, Inc., Carol M. Nelson, Dian Parker, David Powell, Bill Ramage, Charles J. Ramsburg, III, Romulus Craft, Leslie Roth and Jim Hester, Mark Eliot Schwabe, Carolyn Shattuck, Susan Smereka, Peggy Smith, Carolyn Stellatella, Nancy Stone, Daryl V. Storrs, Athena Tasiopoulos, Janet Van Fleet and R.D. Eno, Vermont Community Foundation, Jenny Warshow, Richard Weis, Nat Winthrop, Wolf Kahn Foundation, Stephanie Wolff.

NNEMoCA is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization and a Vermont domestic nonprofit corporation. Gifts are income tax deductible to the extent allowed by law. Checks may be made payable to NNEMoCA and sent to:

NNEMoCA
P.O. Box 648
Barre, VT 05641

Alternatively, you may contribute to us via the Donation Tab on our website. the link to this port follows: https://www.nnemoca.org.

Gifts of appreciated securities may be sent to our brokerage account. Please contact us for details. Qualified Charitable Distributions (QCDs) may be paid to us directly from all or a portion of your Required Minimum Distributions (RMDs) from your IRAs if you are over the age of 70.5 at the time of the contribution. This is even true if you are not yet taking RMDs. Please contact us at nnemoca@gmail.com to discuss this further or with any other questions that you may have.

Your donations are more important than ever. We would enjoy discussing our plans and needs with you personally. Please reach out to us. Thank you for your interest and support. It is critical to our progress, and we are moved by it.