‘Construct an ending’

“An Interesting Light’’ (oil on canvas), by Julia Purinton, of Warren, Vt., (see below) at Edgewater Gallery, Middlebury Vt.

The gallery says:

Ms. Purinton “blends the distinguishable with the imagined, creating dreamlike landscapes in oil. The context of time and place for each work is gracefully ambiguous allowing the viewer to interpret the composition in a personal way.

“Setting a mood with her soft, subtle palette, Purinton begins a story and leaves the ending for us to construct.’’

At the Sugarbush ski area, in Warren, in February. The Warren area is a major recreational and second-home area, anchored by Sugarbush. It also has many artists.

— Photo by TaraMGordon -

In 1910, way before the ski boom.

Being cool in Vermont

The Mad River, in Vermont

“I'm from Vermont, where to be stylish and cool is to have a dirty pair of hiking boots and know how to change a tire, hang drywall, and bale hay. Those people are my home, and every time I come home, it reminds me that there's something to be said for being in the spotlight, but it can never be a whole part of me.’’

— Grace Potter, singer, songwriter and actress. She’s from Waitsfield, in the Mad River Valley.

Downtown Waitsfield, Vt. It’s busier in the winter because of two nearby ski areas, Mad River Glen (whose motto is “Ski It If You Can’’) and the much bigger and fancier Sugarbush.

For three decades, the nonprofit Friends of the Mad River, created to protect the recreational, ecological and aesthetic resources of the Mad River Valley, has performed water-quality monitoring, river restoration, land conservation, public education and outreach on behalf of the watershed.

At the vertiginous Mad River Glen

The huge and rather fancy Sugarbush resort