Our Fall 2019 Arts and Culture Programs!

Our arts and culture programs are designed to build quality relationships across differences of race and culture through small multicultural community events that will engage you in creativity, participatory learning and the joy of discovery.  Our on-Farm Fall 2019 arts and culture programs begin on August 31 and run through October 19. 

​Click on the photos and buttons below for quick links to register for upcoming events. Click the calendar to see our scheduled events.   Scroll down on this page for more information on some of our upcoming events celebrating African-American heritage and the arts and cultures of the African diaspora. Our events include culture-convo-and-painting classes, tours and exhibits, music classes for children, a multimedia creative work-in-progress, sound healing art, and our 2019 To Sing of Common Things: Making A Way Out of No Way humanities speakers series.  Please keep an eye on this page: we'll be posting more summer arts and culture events soon! 
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Questions? Please call and leave a message at (765) 560-5445.

Barn House Tours Saturdays 10 a.m. to 11:30 a.m., June 29-October 19

Tours of the Historic Barn House.  Tours include viewing the special exhibit "Travels of the Intrepid Couple" which showcases the hidden story of a remarkable couple and a rare African-American owned family farm in Vermont, and how they helped build bridges across differences of race, culture and geographic settings for nearly 60 years-- through art, community and a sense of place.

The Barn House includes a beautiful collection of art, textiles, panels, photographs and listening stations with audio-recordings of the wonderful storytelling of 96-year-old Lydia Clemmons about her travels with husband Jack, the people they met, and unique art from North, West, East, Central and Southern Africa.

​Tours start promptly at 10:00 AM most Saturdays.  To book a special tour for your group on another day, please contact our tour director at vtcrocks@gmavt.net.

Saturday morning music and culture classes for kids, 10:00 AM - 11:30 AM and Saturday afternoon painting classes for grownups, 3:00 PM -
​5 PM at the Authentica Art Gallery

​African diaspora visual and performing arts and culture classes. Bring your young citizens of the world to the Clemmons Family Farm to enjoy Jamaican music, culture and storytelling classes Saturday mornings, and enjoy community-building Haitian culture and painting classes for grownups on Saturday afternoons. Our collaborating artists are Master Teachers who specialize in sharing the joy of learning about the history and cultures of the African diaspora through the visual and performing arts:
  • Jamaican music, songs, culture and storytelling with Mr. Michael Dyke.
  • "Art That Binds" Haitian culture, conversation and painting classes with Mr. Julio Desmont. 

​Learn more and sign up by clicking on the buttons below!

African-American Literature Speakers' Series July through October 2019, Saturdays and Sundays from 4-5:30 PM at the Historic Barn House

Above:  "Birds and Things." Linoleum block print by Jack Clemmons and grandchildren. Circa 1986. 
2019 Speakers' Series- To Sing of Common Things: Making A Way Out of No Way.  Our third annual humanities speakers series focuses on the history of African American resilience and achievements.  The five-part series includes authors of recently published books and two very special speakers, 96-year-old Jack and Lydia Clemmons!  The series is moderated by Wanda Heading-Grant.

Saturday, July 20, 2019 4 PM - 5:30: Major Jackson, award-winning poet and co-author of the 2019 "The Best American Poetry" anthology.
Sunday, August 4, 2019 4 PM - 5:30: Rajnii Eddins, author of Their Names Are Mine.  Learn more and register to attend.
Saturday, September 14, 2019 4 PM - 5:30: Emily Bernard, author of Black Bodies: Stories of My Grandmother's Time, My Mother's Time and Mine. Learn more and register to attend.
Saturday, October 12, 2019 4 PM - 5:30: Naima Wade, author of Elbow Dreams: A Black Girl Growing Up in Vermont in the 1960's. Learn more and register to attend.
Saturday, October 19, 2019 4 PM - 5:30: Jackson and Lydia Clemmons, Making A Way Out of No Way: 100 Years of African American Family Storytelling. Learn more and register to attend.

August 3 - September 14, 2019 at the Authentica Art Gallery

City of Hope Resurrection City and the 1968 Poor People’s Campaign. This multi-media exhibit honors Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s daring vision for economic justice and opportunity for every U.S. citizen. Twenty posters, videos and audio collections document the Poor People’s Campaign—a grassroots, multiracial movement that drew thousands of people to Washington, D.C.  For 43 days between May and June 1968, demonstrators demanded social reforms while living side-by-side on the National Mall in a tent city known as Resurrection City.  City of Hope: Resurrection City and the 1968 Poor People's Campaign is part of the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service developed in collaboration with the National Museum of African American History and Culture, and includes additional curations by the Clemmons Family Farm.

The exhibit will run from August 4 through September 15, 2109 at the Authentica Art Gallery: Sunday mornings from 1:30 PM - 4:30 PM.
The Clemmons Family Farm's arts and culture events mobilize the power of the people, arts and cultures of African descent to help build a loving community in Vermont. Our programs are made possible with major support from ArtPlace America and additional funding from the Vermont Humanities Council. Of nearly 1000 applicants nationwide, our "A Sense of Place" project is one of just 23 recipients of ArtPlace America's 2017 National Creative Placemaking Fund grants.  We work in partnership with Champlain College, our fiscal Burlington City Arts and the Peace and Justice Center, and a growing number of other Vermont-based organizations.