Art's Whimsy Delights Students in Vermont
VT Artist Chris Groschner's Assemblages at Vermont Law and Graduate School
March 18, 2025
So. Royalton, VT — Never have so many Vermont Law and Graduate School students stopped to tell me how much they’re enjoying the art exhibition now showing in the Dean Shirley A. Jefferson Gallery on the VLGS campus in South Royalton. It seems Corinth, VT artist Chris Groshner’s current installation of framed and unframed assemblages and “cigar box” art has captured the attention and imaginations of many students. It’s quirky magicality draws the viewer in readily and steadily.
“I love it,” “Wow!,” and “This is really great art,” are just a few of the many exclamations I’ve heard about the show. One law student emailed me with a request that Groschner’s artwork remain up until after Commencement on May 17 so their parents can enjoy it when they visit the school. Of course it will be there for them, and it’ll remain up until the end of May for good measure.
Now that the snow has melted and the intense rains have come and gone, it’s an ideal time to make the trip to SoRo to see this latest art show at Vermont Law and Graduate School. It’s free and open to the public most days, and there’s a wonderful Campus Café just down the hall where you can grab a cup of coffee, breakfast, or lunch if you wish on weekdays.
“I grew up drawing and building “stuff” in suburban Detroit. That stuff included an airplane and a submarine of scavenged scrap wood, aesthetically funky but functionally unsound.” — from Chris Groschner’s artist statement
This artist seems fascinated with used and reused stuff, something that embodies the environmentally-forward-thinking ethos of VLGS and its students. I’d love to take a walk through Groschner’s studio, basement, attic, or barn. There must be decades worth of items he’s collected from all parts. Perhaps that’s why this art has so enchanted and resonated with the community here. It’s real, and it’s recycled.
But, beyond the sustainable notions of this artwork, Chris Groschner’s constructions (assemblages, collages—a single word can’t fully describe what’s presented), that include a smattering of “cigar box” art positioned on pedestals at eye level, coalesce with textured brilliance into a beautifully curated walk through an imagined and highly-layered world within a gallery, within a building, within Vermont’s only law and graduate school. Perhaps it is this positioning of the viewer into a realm of “other” that’s the draw. After all, law students need to flex their imaginative brains just like the rest of us. Groschner seems to be eager to help us develop this creative musculature with his bold, large, multi-dimensional pieces through our respective lenses and life perspectives. It is here, in the highly imagined, whimsical, quirky, and fantastic, that Groschner excels.
Groschner, the artist, ventures into the poetic, closing his artist statement with a brief bit of verse by T.S. Elliott from Four Quartets as follows:
Time present and time past
Are both perhaps in time future,
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is essentially present
All time is unredeemable.
If anything, this installation moves us beyond the real and into the ethereal of time and space, dabbling with powerful notions of redemption. If time is unredeemable, are we? Is law school a good place to ponder a question like this? I feel like I’ve walked into a sanctuary of sorts while wandering past Groschner’s art. There’s a power greater than I can identify that seems to emanate. It is awe-inspiring, or at least it gets a “Wow” from a student here. Perhaps it is the boundary joining, crossing, and merging exercise of time, space, and artistic creativity that deals solidly with the re-used “stuff” of life that’s the thing making this show so marvelously compelling. Immersing yourself in Groschner’s art makes you feel so…whimsically alive.
Chris Groschner’s artwork will be showing in the Dean Shirley A. Jefferson Gallery within the Chase Student Center on the Vermont Law and Graduate School campus in South Royalton, VT through May 31, 2025. The Upper Valley community is invited to visit. More than 15 pieces of art and sculpture comprise this show. Click Here for maps and directions to VLGS.
Dave Celone is vice president of alumni relations & development at Vermont Law and Graduate School where he’s enjoying the looks on law & graduate school student faces as they experience existential artwork and the imaginative and creative forces they propel. All thanks to one artist from Corinth, Vermont.