Vermont Museums Showcase Circus Photography, Hope and Realism in 2025
May 07, 2024
Vermont museums are gearing up for the 2025 season with new exhibits highlighting circus photography, hope, birds, stains, history and uncanny realism.
Read on to learn about summer and fall exhibits at nine Vermont museums across the state. (This story is updated for 2025.)
-Shelburne Museum opens for the 2025 season on May 10. Photo courtesy of Shelburne Museum.
Shelburne Museum
Founded in 1947 by Electra Havemeyer Webb, the Shelburne Museum includes houses, barns, a meeting house, a one-room schoolhouse, a lighthouse, a jail, a general store, a covered bridge and the 220-foot steamboat Ticonderoga.
The museum features a variety of exhibits in 2025, including A Grand Spectacle in the Great Outdoors: Elliot Fenander’s Circus Photography from May 10-Oct. 26.
The museum opens for the season on May 10, 2025.
Shelburne Museum, 6000 Shelburne Rd., Shelburne; shelburnemuseum.org. Open daily 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
-The Birds of Vermont Museum features beautiful bird carvings and walking trails.
Birds of Vermont Museum in Huntington
The Birds of Vermont Museum features lifelike bird carvings of over 200 species by master carver Bob Spear. Make time to explore the museum’s walking trails, open from dawn to dusk. Upcoming events include a Green Mountain Woodcarvers Carve-In, Early Morning Bird Walks and a Forest Sit.
The museum is open for the 2025 season.
Birds of Vermont Museum, 900 Sherman Hollow Road, Huntington; birdsofvermont.org; Open Wednesday-Sunday 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
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-From 1793 to 1961, Rokeby was home to four generations of Robinsons, a family of Quakers, farmers, abolitionists, artists and authors. Photo courtesy of Rokeby Museum.
Rokeby Museum in Ferrisburg
The Rokeby Museum opens for the season with Inspired by Nature: The Women Artists of Rokeby. From 1793 to 1961, Rokeby was home to four generations of Robinsons, a family of Quakers, farmers, abolitionists, artists and authors. The surrounding woodlands, ponds, flowers, animals and fields and scenic views inspired the art of Ann Stevens Robinson and her daughters Rachael Robinson Elmer and Mary Robinson Perkins.
Rokeby Museum also presents a variety of events over the summer, including Music with the Museum May 29, Sheep and Wool Day June 14; and free museum day on Juneteenth.
The museum opens for the season on May 10, 2025.
Rokeby Museum, 4334 Route 7, Ferrisburgh; rokeby.org. Open daily from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. May-October.
The former Estey Organ Company in Brattleboro. Photo by Joshua Carnes. Courtesy of Brattleboro Historical Society.
The Estey Organ Museum in Brattleboro
The Estey Organ Museum showcases the history and heritage of the Estey Organ Company, makers of reed organs, pump organs, melodeons and pipe organs.
During its heyday, the company was producing 700 instruments per month. It continued manufacturing organs through two world wars and the Great Depression. In 1960, the company (then rebranded as Estey Electronics, Inc.) closed its Brattleboro location and moved production to California. Estey Organ Co. produced over half a million organs over 109 years.
Land on the hill behind the factory was made available to employees to build their homes. The area became known as Esteyville. In 2002, the Brattleboro Historical Society opened the Estey Organ Museum on the premises of the old factory.
The museum is opens for the 2025 season.
The Estey Organ Museum, 108 Birge Street in Brattleboro, esteyorganmuseum.org; Open Saturdays between May and October.
-The Museum of Everyday Life is a self-service museum in Glover.
Museum of Everyday Life in Glover
The Museum of Everyday Life in Glover will open its long-awaited exhibit, Stains, on May 31, 2025.
Stains can appear anywhere—on rented tuxedo shirts, teeth or someone’s reputation. The desire to be free from stains has fueled an entire universe of stain-removal products and processes. The museum will display a collection from the community, ranging from personal artifacts to art.
The Museum of Everyday Life, 3482 Dry Pond Rd., Glover; museumofeverydaylife.org; This is a self-service museum open daily 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Turn on the lights when you enter and off when you leave. The space is not heated, so wear a coat if it’s cold.
-The Henry Sheldon Museum in Middlebury opened in 1884. Photo courtesy of the Henry Sheldon Museum.
Henry Sheldon Museum of Vermont History in Middlebury
In her recent book Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration, Nicole Fleetwood observes, “Prison art is part of the long history of captive people envisioning freedom—creating art, imagining worlds, and finding ways to resist and survive.”
The Henry Sheldon Museum, the oldest community-based museum in the country, has welcomed visitors and researchers since 1884. One of its summer exhibitions includes Finding Hope Within, which features works of art that have emerged through the carceral system—prisons and jails—in Vermont.
The museum opens for the season on May 21, 2025.
Henry Sheldon Museum, One Park St. Middlebury; henrysheldonmuseum.org. Open Wednesday to Saturday 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
-The Saint Albans Museum offers educational exhibits, youth education programs and cultural events. Photo courtesy of the Saint Albans Museum.
Saint Albans Museum
See a new community exhibit at the Saint Albans Museum in the St. Albans Bay History Room, featuring a loaned collection prepared and curated by the Abenaki Cultural Conservancy.
Another 2025 exhibition is Picturing Women Inventors from The Smithsonian. You’ll explore the stories of women inventors who are often overlooked or forgotten. Learn about women from a variety of backgrounds and interests who have created inventions that have made their mark.
The Saint Albans Museum opens for the season on May 14, with a grand opening party, “The Decades” on May 17.
Saint Albans Museum, 9 Church St., Saint Albans; stamuseum.org. Open Wednesday and Thursday from noon to 4 p.m., Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
-The Old Stone House Museum tells the story of Alexander Twilight, the first African-American college graduate and U.S. state legislator.
Old Stone Museum and Historic Village in Brownington
The Old Stone House Museum and Historic Village tells the story of Alexander Twilight, the first African-American college graduate and state legislator in the United States. He built the museum’s Old Stone House, which he called Athenian Hall.
Inside the museum’s 30 rooms are more than 75,000 objects—including furniture, paintings, tools, textiles, and folk art—that tell the story of Orleans County. In addition to the Old Stone House, the museum includes a collection of historic buildings from the 19th century.
The museum opens for the season on May 17, 2025.
The Old Stone House Museum and Historic Village, 109 Old Stone House Road, Brownington; oldstonehousemuseum.org. Open Wednesday- Sunday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. To go inside the Old Stone House and other historic buildings, you must book a tour in-person on arrival or online before you visit.
Bennington Museum will showcase the Samplers exhibit, featuring 24 pieces made by Vermont girls in the 18th and 19th century. -Courtesy photo.
Bennington Museum
Bennington Museum is featuring an exhibit Samplers now through September 7, 2025. The exhibit features Vermont girls’ samplers from the 18th and 19th century. Through 24 unique pieces, the exhibit explores how the ideals displayed in girls’ embroidery 200 years ago shaped the America we know today, how education couched in detailed needlework could ultimately provide a path to independence, and how teenagers will still be teenagers across the centuries.
On June 6, the museum opens Green Mountain Magic: Uncanny Realism in Vermont. The exhibition will explore magic realism as it was practiced in Vermont during the mid-to-late 20th century, through the work of Ivan Albright, John Atherton, Vanessa Helder, Patsy Santo, George Tooker, Jared French, Pavel Tchelitchew, Luigi Lucioni, William Christopher, John Semple, Shirley Jackson and others.
Each of these artists had ties to Vermont and a taste for the fantastic—painting or writing with a brand of realism that could make the seemingly mundane uncanny or the uncanny mundane. The exhibition will run through November.
The Bennington Museum is open for the 2025 season.
Bennington Museum, 75 Main St., Bennington; benningtonmuseum.org; Open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
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