Tom McKone
BARRE — Before being installed in its permanent home and the space for which it was designed, the Aldrich Public Library, “The Heart of Barre: Building Community After the Floods” went on tour. The multi-media celebration of community, compassion, and resilience was first exhibited at Nelson Ace Hardware on North Main Street in Barre, followed by a stint at the Statehouse in Montpelier.
Now, you can enjoy the two 80-by-80-inch paintings and the many smaller panels with images, poems, and narratives that grace the library’s broad stairway in the comfort of your own home. No, Aldrich won’t let you borrow them: The exhibit is now available as a book.
Created by artist Dierdra Tara Michelle and poet and community organizer Shawna Trader, and designed and laid out by Kate Mueller of Pendragon Productions in Montpelier, this high-quality, 7-by-10-inch softcover book effectively captures the upbeat, can-do spirit of the exhibit. Although the emphasis is on the July 2023 flood, the exhibit and book relate to the flood of July 2024, also.
“Barre has always been a town shaped by resilience,” library director Kristin J. Baumann, writes in the foreword. “From the hands of granite workers who built its foundations, to the generations who have called it home, strength has never been an abstract idea here; it has been lived. And when the waters rose, that same strength rose with them.”
“The ‘Heart of Barre’ reminds us that survival is not just about enduring the storm,” Baumann writes. “It is about rebuilding together. It is about remembering together. It is about choosing, again and again, to stand with one another long after the waters recede.”
“By sharing these experiences, we create pathways for others who may find themselves in similar situations, allowing us all to endure together,” Michelle writes. “The indomitable human spirit emerged repeatedly in the experiences of those featured in the ‘Heart of Barre’ portraits.”
The 23 people in the 20 portraits include people who lost their homes, volunteers, community leaders, and business owners. In addition to writing poems inspired by the stories of some of them, Trader writes a series of “Lessons Learned,” such as “Permission to Receive.”
“Giving care might come more naturally in our adult lives, but it’s important to remember that receiving care came first,” Trader writes. “None of us got to this point without relying on somebody …. Some of us have been told that receiving care is bad. The Heart of Barre participants have taught us that receiving and giving is an active exchange of abundance that mutually benefits both parties.”
The importance of having a safe home is an important theme. The floods were especially hard on people with lower incomes, and one participant in the book was unhoused. The fact that 60% of the people in Barre are renters, and turnover is high, increases the challenges of protecting people and building community.
Like the exhibit, the book includes Michelle’s portraits of the participants, narratives about their experiences, quotes from many of them, and Trader’s poems. With each portrait, there is a QR code that allows readers to access short audio clips from the interviews they had with Michelle and Trader.
Copies of “Heart of Barre: Building Community After the Floods” are available in Barre at Next Chapter Books, the Barre Social Club, the Vermont Bicycle Shop, and the Aldrich Public Library. Online, readers can get a copy at heart-of-barre-book.square.site, or by emailing heartofbarre@gmail.com.
