The glow of lights inside all the houses felt at once comforting and melancholy, knowing that everyone inside those homes was feeling the same fear and isolation.

He works in a variety of mediums including photography, book arts, video, installation, and public art and has exhibited internationally at institutions that include: MASS MoCA, the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Milwaukee Art Museum. Weston has released recordings with various labels, including HatHut, Sound American, and Carrier Records, and their release SOLO WORKS was featured on Bandcamp Daily’s Best Experimental Music of 2020. Sonic Blanket was a community-based, multimedia art project addressing the themes of isolation, connection, history, and place. This “sonic blanket” (or listening area) was the literal and metaphorical framework for the collaboration.The idea for Sonic Blanket was born during the early days of the pandemic lockdown, while Gitelson was walking through his neighborhood in Brattleboro.

His artwork is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Contemporary Photography, the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, and the Fidelity Investment Collection, and more. Amber’s work has been shown widely and is included in private and public collections including the Bainbridge Island Art Museum Artist’s Book Collection. She is the recipient of a Creation Grant from the Vermont Arts Council and was the longtime poetry critic for the San Francisco Chronicle. During the summer of 2022, we partnered with local non-profit organizations Artful Streets, the Downtown Brattleboro Alliance, and Putney-based artist Amber Paris to develop a series of interactive art-making events and public installations for each of Brattleboro’s Gallery Walks (monthly, May-December).Deepest gratitude for inclusion and collaboration on Artful Streets and Brattleboro First Friday public programming. Seeking to create a way to offer comfort and protection to everyone in these homes, radio waves seemed to be an apt metaphor: both an invisible forcefield hovering above us, and a comforting blanket that we sleep below. We also partnered with the Brattleboro Museum and Art Center and the Brattleboro Retreat Farm for a series of public listening parties where community members were invited to sit together beneath the radio waves during a live radio broadcast. She was the 2019 grant recipient of the Crosby-Gannet and Dunham-Mason funds in partnership with the Westminster West Library. Special acknowledgment and gratitude to Denise and Paul Pouliot, Tribal Leaders of the Cowasuck Band of the Pennacook-Abenaki People in New Hampshire, who graciously welcomed us into their home and shared with us their collection of traditional Abenaki instruments and traditions.

She works across diverse mediums that include fiber, bookmaking, photography, placemaking art and painting. Additional public artworks included full-page color posters printed in two of the local newspapers, a series of outdoor signs hung in tucked-away places and beside hiking trails throughout the broadcast area which read “You are beneath the cover of the Sonic Blanket,” and a 3’ x 25’ banner that was installed above Main Street for one week in early September, 2022.Brattleboro Community Radio) between December 18, 2021, and December 11, 2022, as well as on select Sundays at 2:30 p. They have presented work internationally at venues including the Borealis Festival, the Ghent Jazz Festival, and the American Academy in Rome. The recordings that we made at their home are featured prominently throughout the soundtrack of Sonic Blanket. The invisible blanket of sound waves emitting from the tower of WVEW extends roughly 10 miles in every direction. Thank you to the Brattleboro Museum and Art Center for hosting a daytime broadcasting party in their galleries.

This project would not be possible without the openness and generosity of WVEW to provide us with a nightly broadcasting time slot. At its core, "Sonic Blanket" is public art that reflects the resilience and interconnectedness of the Brattleboro community during a time of isolation and trauma due to the pandemic. Weston is a member of RAGE THORMBONES, Ensemble Pamplemousse, the Wet Ink Large Ensemble, and performs regularly as a soloist. Zara Bode, William Forchion, Olive Gitelson, Cassandra Holloway, Robin Morgan, Daniel Quipp, Paula Smoot Sistare, Brandie Starr, Amanda Witman, and Diana Whitney.

Thank you to the Brattleboro Museum and Art Center for hosting multiple broadcasting parties on their grounds. Diana’s poetry debut, Wanting It, won the Rubery Book Award, and her anthology You Don’t Have to Be Everything: Poems for Girls Becoming Themselves, was released by Workman Publishing to critical acclaim and became a YA bestseller.