Brattleboro Words Trail: Murals, Maps and Sound

May 2021 through August 2023

Local artist Cynthia Parker-Houghton was commissioned to create a map representing, and inviting exploration of the Brattleboro Words Trail, community-created audio pegged to places and people significant in the region’s unique history of writing, publishing, printing, thought leadership and all things ‘words’ (see history below).

Choosing the imagery for this project was challenging because of the large and diverse scope of the research involved. The landscape itself with its mountains and rivers became the uniting feature for the more than 100 audio stories currently pegged to the Trail, and more stories are still being discovered and created. People who’d like to tell a story can contact: brattleborowords@gmail.com

The murals are updated with ceramic buttons imprinted with the initials of the characters each time a community-created story is completed. The murals were created in order to print the companion maps that visitors can pick-up at the exhibit.

Viewers can use the maps and murals in conjunction with the stand-along Brattleboro Words Trail app and website, which allow you to listen to stories associated with more than 80 sites in and around Brattleboro – with 50 sites within walking distance of 118.

The imagery for the map was created using Sgraffito, a ceramic carving technique which creates a look similar to wood block or linoleum printing. In sgraffito a layer of dark slip is carved through to reveal lighter clay underneath. Cynthia honed her skills with this technique as Lead Designer at Natalie Blake Studios where she has created murals for public and private installations throughout the United States for more than a decade.

Our Storied Landscape: Brattleboro Words Trail Sites and Sounds debuted at the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center October 2020 – February 2021 as “Our Storied Landscape: Revealing the Brattleboro Words Trail”

Next Stop: Amtrak!
The murals will move to the exterior, platform-facing wall of the new Brattleboro Amtrak station as part of a permanent Brattleboro Words Trail exhibition. The unveiling will occur with the opening of the station in Fall of 2024.

Brattleboro Words Project Background
The Project began in 2017 when a group assembled at 118 Elliot to discuss what the town could do to apply for a new National Endowment for the Humanities “Creating Humanities Communities” matching grant.

Five local groups took the lead: Brattleboro Literary Festival, the Brattleboro Historical Society, Brooks Memorial Library, Write Action and Marlboro College (which closed in 2020). The original NEH proposal, written by William Edelglass PhD and Lissa Weinmann, secured the four-year 1:1 NEH matching grant for the work.

That initial phase of the Project was successfully completed in January 2021 when the Trail and a companion book were released to the public. The book, entitled “Print Town: Brattleboro’s Legacy of Words’ won a national design award in 2022. The Trail itself has also won regional and national awards, including an ‘Award of Excellence’ from the American Association for State and Local History.

The Words Project mounted exhibits at 118 Elliot, Brooks Memorial Library, Brattleboro Museum and Art Center and in MILES, a ‘Mobile Interactive Literary Exhibition Space’ parked in 118 Elliot’s back lot. MILES hosted the Brattleboro Words Project’s first exhibit “Lucy Speaks” about Lucy Terry Prince, the nation’s first known African American poet and a Brattleboro-area resident, as a pop-up on Main Street during the 2017 Brattleboro Literary Festival.

118 Elliot’s In-Kind Brattleboro Words Project Support
118 Elliot donated the MILES trailer to the Brattleboro Words Project for that and other exhibitions and has provided office, exhibition and meeting/event space to the Project since its inception in 2017, free of charge. 118 Partner Lissa Weinmann continues to lead the Project with an Advisory Team at the Vermont Folklife Center including Shanta Lee, Starr LaTronica, Sally Seymour, Rolf Parker-Houghton and William Edelglass, Phd through a fiscal sponsorship project at the Vermont Folklife Center.

See more details at BrattleboroWords.org.