Other Ways of Being
The origins of and reasons for To Be a Good Vermonter.
In an American moment defined by polarization, consumerism, haste, climate collapse, & loneliness, the state of Vermont emanates an aura of other possibilities - other ways of being. But Vermont is shaped by its people as much as it shapes its people (and it does shape us, and how!).
And so, when considering Vermont - its postcard-worthy landscape; its reputation for small farms and small businesses; its (accurate) stereotype of grit, helpfulness, intelligence, and cooperative living - we have to acknowledge that Vermonters have collectively shaped Vermont toward our own vision of what is good…toward our own magnetic location of utopian longing. And now, still, we do it every day, and will keep doing it, whether or not we know that’s what we’re doing.
Can we ever reach utopia? Unlikely, but not out of the question, depending. But the striving toward utopia - the longing for it - that holds value in the promise of a better version of this place, better version of this moment, better version of ourselves…does it not? Don’t forget: “utopia” means “good place” as well as “no place”. British statesman (and, more famously, writer) Sir Thomas More coined the word “utopia” from the ancient Greek words ou-topos (meaning “no place”) and eu-topos (meaning a “good place”). It need not be entirely beyond existence.
So, to shape our own versions of utopia, in the here and now, let us ask:
What does it mean to be a good human?
What does it mean to be a good American?
What does it mean to be a good Vermonter?
I started asking myself these questions (minus the Vermonter part) in earnest around 2017, when I was a graduate student pursuing an MFA at Georgia State University in Atlanta. I had just started to truly mine my life, my personal history, and my most burning concerns about the world in order to write my Masters thesis and make an accompanying body of artwork.
I had no idea where to begin.
By chance, during a graduate seminar, the renowned artist + professor Craig Drennen asked this question: ‘What is the most powerful force in the universe?’ Something about this question both excited and haunted me.
Fast-forward two years after hearing that question for the first time. I was sequestered in a cabin in Rabun Gap, GA at the Hambidge Center for Creative Arts & Sciences. It was nighttime in the forest, pitch black, and raining a real frog-strangling kind of rain, as it’s wont to do in North Georgia. I had a glass of whiskey, uninterrupted solitude, and a wall full of pinned index cards with words scribbled on them. Red yarn drew connections between individual words of relevance to my work, each sourced from a decade of sketchbooks and journals. Honestly, it looked more like evidence in the hunt for a serial killer than anything related to artwork.
The only word connected to all the other words? Utopias.
That night set me on a course of five years (and counting) of research, writing, art-making…and getting myself into plenty of more-or-less intense conversations with friends, family, colleagues, students, and total strangers.
To Be a Good Vermonter is the next era of this work, and it is this pursuit that brought me to call Vermont home - and y’all, I’m staying. Ride or die. Roots down. (More on this principle later.)
To better understand Vermont, and what it means to be a good Vermonter, we have to ask these questions:
How do our ideas about utopia shape our habits, our affiliations, our fears, our desires, our decisions, our beliefs, our economy, and our communities?
How, then, shall we live - especially as individuals within a collective society?
…and what the hell do Vermont and Vermonters have to do with any of this?
To Be a Good Vermonter (TBAGV) exists to answer these questions (or die trying) through interviews, photographs, essays, artwork, audio, video, and even a humble advice column (yes, you read that right). In essence, it’s a multimedia documentary project; a real-time existential memoir; a non-fiction investigation into our current political & cultural moment; a wellspring that inspires content for my painting, printmaking, and textile artwork; and an archive of Vermont stories told by Vermont people. It takes aim at all of this through the often-stereotyped, never-surpassed, nuanced cultural bounty of America’s “brave little state”, Vermont.
And who am I? I’m Jack Thomas: an American by birth; a rural Vermonter by choice; an artist/writer through sheer force of will; a former college professor; a homesteader in the making; and an international research consultant and public speaker on all things anti-terrorism/anti-extremism. To Be a Good Vermonter is an extension of my studio art practice...and an attempt to find answers to the questions that keep me up at night. I make art about the most powerful force in the universe: utopian longing. I think this kind of work has the capacity to save the world. And, of course, I very much want to be a good Vermonter.
I hope you’ll join me as I try to figure out how the heck we do this whole living well together thing- and how being good Vermonters, good Americans, and good people just might make it possible.
Thank you.
Warmly,
Jack Thomas