Bill and Benedicte Dodge have always believed that art should be affordable. It shouldn’t be about spending great wads of cash but about, as Bill Dodge puts it, “lifting people up where they need it, when they need it.”... Read more

When director Baz Luhrmann went on “The Colbert Report” last week to talk about his new adaptation of The Great Gatsby, he mentioned that a “very regal woman” took him by the hands after the movie’s world premiere and told him she’d come all the way from Vermont to see what he’d done with her grandfather’s book.... Read more

White River Junction artist Benjamin Peberdy doesn’t sign his name to the collages he creates, he brands them with a logo. Peberdy makes art under the appellation Deluxe Unlimited^TM, which he chose because he “thought it sounded nicely sort of self-important, and sort of vague.”

His pseudonym may be intentionally ambiguous, but what Peberdy is making is clear: cleverly composed, witty and often biting collages composed of vintage print advertisements, comic-book text bubbles and other illustrations. ... Read more

In the 1970s, when François Clemmons was playing Sportin’ Life in the Cleveland Symphony production of Porgy and Bess — the role that earned him a Grammy in 1973 — he asked musical director Lorin Maazel if he could ditch his tuxedo and wear a shimmering, multicolored silk smoking jacket instead.... Read more

Everyone gravitates to the kitchen. And why wouldn’t they? That’s where the food is and where the party is. But it’s also where clutter builds up. And where home cooks and hosts need things to actually function.

When things don’t, it may be time for a radical kitchen renovation.

Erica Ell, co-owner of Richmond’s HAVEN Design + Building, has remodeled a lot of kitchens. She says the key to a good renovation is “bringing in good lighting and daylight and opening up the kitchen into other living spaces.” ... Read more

When Barre businessman Charles Semprebon died in 2009, the 66-year-old left more than $2 million to his city. About half of it — $500,000 each to Barre City and Barre Town — was earmarked to complete the bike path that links those two communities. The rest was intended for civic improvements to the city, one of which is the addition of several new outdoor stone sculptures.... Read more

In both Spanish and Italian, nido means nest. So it’s a fitting name for the cozy Burlington shop where Phiona Milano has sold hand-spun yarn and colorful fabrics to knitters and sewers, the ultimate nesters, for the last four years.... Read more

The Broadway theater critic Walter Kerr once described the score of The Threepenny Opera as “the most wonderfully insulting music I have ever come across.” Its sinister number, “Mack the Knife,” is a classic thanks to recordings by Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald and Frank Sinatra. But the musical itself is infrequently performed in the U.S.... Read more

Salad-bar syndrome: It sounds slightly ridiculous, no? Is it the sinking dread that visits salad-bar grazers as they stare listlessly into the bar, overwhelmed by choices? — chick peas and carrots and corn, oh my! Or could it be a nasty foodborne illness transmitted through super-powered sneezes that blast right past the plastic guard?

When Hinesburg resident Wright Cronin told Seven Days that his doctor recently suggested he might be suffering from SBS, we just had to get to the bottom of it. WTF is it? Is it as silly as it sounds? And how does one get it?... Read more

Step into Burlington’s BCA Center on the Saturday Night Fever-style illuminated-glass-brick flooring, and one thing becomes clear: The new exhibit, called “User Required,” is less about What does it mean? than about What does it do? And how?

The floor is mesmerizing. When no one’s standing on it, it flashes a complicated series of color patterns and signals. Step onto it, and the tiles beneath your feet start to glow. Move to the left, and the light moves with you.... Read more