The Hayfield Art Gallery

Each summer a series of monumental artworks rises from a hayfield in Pawlet, Vermont, transforming an ordinary agricultural landscape into an open-air gallery. Installed directly in the landscape, the works exist somewhere between photography, public art, and land art, inviting visitors to encounter them unexpectedly in the rural environment.

Together they form what we call The Hayfield Art Gallery.

The project began in May of 2020 when we installed a single artwork in the field as a gift to our neighbors and community during the early months of the pandemic. The piece, titled My Heart is Very Big, was a twelve-foot photograph of a woman standing in an orchard with words painted into the image that reflected the uncertainty of that moment.

At the time we had no idea what would happen. Would the structure survive the weather? Would the artwork hold up over time? Would anyone even like it?

But something unexpected occurred.

Cars slowed as they drove past. Horns honked. Neighbors waved. Soon people were pulling over to look more closely, some stepping out of their cars and walking along the edge of the field to spend time with the work. During a very dark moment we had found a way to share art outside the walls of a gallery.

Over time the installation grew. What began as a single artwork gradually expanded into a series of five monumental outdoor pieces that remain installed for a full calendar year.

While the project began in the hayfield across from our home in Pawlet, several works have since appeared in other landscapes, extending the ideas of the Hayfield Art Gallery beyond the field itself.

The works usually take the form of large-scale film photographs taken by Stephen and hand-painted with text written by Eve. They are mounted to custom scaffolding designed to withstand the Vermont elements as best they can. One reaches thirteen feet in height and another stretches thirty-four feet across the landscape.

“Art helps us make sense of the world,” Eve says. “During times of uncertainty we both felt strongly that we needed art more than ever.”

What began as a temporary solution during quarantine gradually evolved into something else.

“Now it has become an exciting and creative way to reach new audiences,” Stephen explains. “It brings our art out of the gallery and into everyday life.”

Annual Hayfield Exhibitions

2020 — Monuments to Now
Five monumental works responding to the emotional landscape of 2020, including the pandemic and a national reckoning with racial injustice.

2021 — The Dollhouse Family and the Black Strawberry
A series exploring play, confinement, transformation, and the strange normalization of pandemic life.

2022 — An Echo of Affection
Works inspired by the covered bridges of Vermont and the mythologies of place that surround them.

2023 — Why We Look Through Windows
An exploration of how we relate to the world after extraordinary events, including themes of curiosity, fear, introversion, and rebirth.

2024 — No One’s Home: The Secret of the Golden Scarf
A fairy tale narrative in which a female figure transforms through multiple identities—old woman, young girl, and mythic archetype—exploring storytelling as a way of making sense of chaos.

2025 — What Happens When You Defund the Arts?

For five years the Hayfield Art Gallery served as a free outdoor exhibition created as a gesture of gratitude to the community.

In 2025 the project took a different direction.

As news of proposed cuts to arts funding continued to emerge, we felt an urgency to address the rapidly shifting landscape in the world of the arts.

Instead of a mixed-media exhibition, the field now contains a single monumental work.

Stretching thirty-two feet across the scaffolding, the piece reads simply:

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU DEFUND THE ARTS?

The four other scaffold structures that normally display artworks have been painted entirely black.

The installation asks a question, but it also suggests an answer.

When the arts are defunded, what remains is silence.

Art in the Landscape

During the pandemic many of us turned to the creative arts to make sense of the world—to find hope, distraction, and connection through movies, music, books, poetry, and visual art.

The Hayfield Art Gallery grew out of that moment.

It remains free and open to the public.

Visitors encounter the work directly in the landscape, where weather, light, and the changing seasons continually transform the experience of the art.

Since opening, the Hayfield Art Gallery has been the subject of news stories on NBC Boston News at Ten, New England Cable News, WTEN Albany ABC, WCAX Burlington CBS, and articles in Seven Days, the Rutland Herald, and the Times Argus.