UnderWater, UnderGround
​Artist Residency

x
AJ Steele is a Vermont multidisciplinary artist creating work primarily in clay.  First and foremost they identify as a storyteller, using any medium that curiosity and functionality leads them to.

​Their work largely features motifs of nature and nostalgia, marrying images of flora and fauna that fascinates them.
x
Julio Desmont is a Vermont visual artist whose journey began in his early childhood in Haiti, where he was inspired by the vibrant imagery of trogon birds and the colorful, decorative public transportation known as Taptaps. He typically paints with acrylic or oil paints, and sometimes use mixed media including spray paint. 

Influenced by his Haitian culture, Julio’s artwork is vibrant and has a lot of movement. He chooses to radiate and reflect happiness in my work, which balances chaos with stability. Influenced by renowned artists such as Jean Michel Basquiat, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Pablo Picasso, and Georgia O’Keeffe, Desmont has developed a unique modernist style that employs deep, vibrant colors lines and shapes. His artwork is often mesmerizing, evoking a sense of joy and quickening in the hearts and bodies of those who experience it.

In addition to his artistic pursuits, Desmont is passionate about education and community engagement. Desmont collaborates with Clemmons Family Farm on a variety of community arts programs for children, families, the senior citizens.  His workshops and activities designed specifically for elderly audiences combine his knack for storytelling with his vibrant and joyful art to bring comfort, engagement, and inspiration to their lives. His ability to create inclusive and uplifting artistic experiences makes him a cherished figure in educational and elder communities.

​​Clemmons Family Farm is pleased to announce that AJ Justice and Julio Desmont are the 2025 artists-in-residence for our "UnderWater, UnderGround: Black/Indigenous Creatives Historize Charlotte, Vermont’s Sea Change” program.  The two artists were selected for the second round of this program, following Winosha Steele and William Ransom's residencies in 2024.  The artists were selected based on the criteria of artistic excellence, commitment to the spirit and purpose of the residency, and availability and flexibility to fully engage in the residency.

During the residency program, which will run between May and December 2025, each artist will receive $3000, logistical support, art supplies, transportation assistance, and occasional lodging and studio space on the historic Clemmons farm in Charlotte, Vermont. This support will facilitate the artists’ research and creative work to develop multi-media art about Lake Champlain Basin’s ecological, geological, and cultural histories and to engage with visitors to the farm and with surrounding communities. One of the subjects of the artists’ research will be the 11,500-year-old skeleton of a Beluga whale, which was discovered in 1849, ten feet underground and just two miles south of what is now known as the Clemmons farm. The artists will make field trips to the Beluga Whale Historic Marker in Charlotte, the Echo Leahy Center for Lake Champlain in Burlington where a replica of the Charlotte Beluga whale skeleton is on exhibit, and Mystic Aquarium in Mystic, Connecticut, where they will see live Beluga whales.
 
Justice and Desmont will also research the history of the Underground Railroad in the Lake Champlain Basin area by visiting the Rokeby Museum in Ferrisburgh, Vermont, and the North Star Underground Railroad Museum in Ausable Chasm, New York. Finally, the two artists will explore more contemporary stories of Black Vermonters who moved to make their homes in the state during the Great Migration and over the past several decades.
 
Creative outputs of Desmont and Justice’s artist residencies will include works-in-progress, artist talks and presentations, and co-creation art workshops for surrounding communities and visitors to the Clemmons farm. An UnderWater, UnderGround multimedia art exhibit created by the two artists will be installed at the Clemmons farm and open to the public in Fall 2025.  
Clemmons Family Farm’s UnderWater, UnderGround artist-in-residence program is funded in part by an agreement awarded by the Great Lakes Fishery Commission (GLFC) to the New England Interstate Water Pollution Control Commission (NEIWPCC) in partnership with the Lake Champlain Basin Program (LCBP), and by grants from the Vermont Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts.