Quarry Hill Creative Center

Quarry Hill Creative Center
QH
Motto: "To enjoy life and appreciate beauty and the esthetic of the creative person; to support and protect children from abuse and neglect; not to hunt or fish or kill animals."
Country United States
State Vermont
City Rochester
Corporation Lyman Hall, Inc.
Foundation

1946

Present Administrators: Brion McFarlin and Isabella Fiske McFarlin
Founded by Irving Fiske and Barbara Hall Fiske
Area
 • Total 200 acres (80 ha)
Population (1990s)[1]
 • Total 90 (full-time)

Quarry Hill Creative Center, in Rochester, Vermont, is Vermont's oldest alternative living group or community.[2] It was founded in 1946 by Irving Fiske, a playwright, writer, and public speaker; and his wife, Barbara Hall Fiske, an artist and one of the few female cartoonists of the Golden Age of Comic Books.

History

On April 10, 1946, the Fiskes bought 140 acres (0.57 km2) of mountain, meadow, and brook land in Rochester, Vermont. Their intention was to create an artists’ and writers’ retreat, a gathering place for creative and freethinking people.

When the countercultural movement of the 1960s and 1970s began, hundreds of people from all over the world began to discover Quarry Hill. through Irving Fiske's talks on philosophy,religion, psychology and Qu awareness. They were also invited to Quarry Hill by Barbara Hall Fiske, by Isabella Fiske (b. August 12, 1950) and William Fiske, (Feb.4, 1954-Jul. 18. 2008). t[1] Many people wanted to build houses at Quarry Hill, and they did, with an agreement with the Fiskes that the land would continue to be owned by the family. .The place was known for its international population and for its ideals about child care. Many children grew up at Quarry Hill and attended its private K-12 school, the North Hollow School (which in 1987 had 16 students).[3] The school was based on the principles of the Fiske family and of Summerhill School in England, and ran Free The Kids! Program, which offers educational material on the self- destructive and negative effect on children of spanking and other violence. Many graduates of the school have gone on to college and graduate school.

One of the well-known residents of Quarry Hill was the late Stephen Huneck, who lived there during the mid- to late-1960s. Huneck later became a well-known folk artist, who created the famous Dog Church in St. Johnsbury, VT with many carved dog images. He often said Barbara Fiske was one of his art teachers; William Fiske (1954-2008), the Fiske's son, was one of his closest friends; and he called Isabella Fiske McFarlin till almost the end of his life (he committed suicide in 2010).[4] Another resident who has achieved prominence is Alan Stirt, woodworker and bowlmaker.[5]

In 1976, Irving and Barbara divorced, and a family-owned rental corporation, Lyman Hall, Inc., took over the land.[6] William Fiske was its first President, a position now held by Brion T, McFarlin, who on October 14, 1984 ••married Isabella Fiske in Brandon, VT.[7] William Fiske was an autodidact, a computer programmer who created two computer software companies. a classical flautist, a talented photographer, and a mathematician. He attended The University of Vermont, earning two degrees in computer programming, and was in the process of working on a Ph.D in History when he diedt on July 18, 2008, in his sleep, in Burlington, VT.[8] He was married to Anne Fitzgerald till the couple divorced after 10 years. He has two children by an earlier connection, Jason D. Us and Eva Isabel Us. On April 9.1989. Barbara married Dr. Donald W. Calhoun, sociologist, Quaker (as Barbara had become in the 1980s) and well-known writer and teacher of Sociology at the University of Miami.[9] Don Calhoun was a supportive and pleasant figure to many at Quarry Hill and in Florida till his death on May 9. 2009.

Isabella Fiske, the Fiske's daughter, had become friends with many underground cartoonists in the 1960s, including Trina Robbins, Robert Crumb, Kim Deitch, and Art Spiegelman. [10]

In 1978 Art Spiegelman, Françoise Mouly, and a number of Quarry Hill residents created Top-Drawer Rubber Stamp Company, a pictorial rubber stamp company featuring art by Robert Crumb, Spiegelman, and many other cartoonists and artists, including Barbara Fiske. This art rubber stamp company provided employment for several Quarry Hill residents. "She Changed Comics: Pre-Code & Golden Age: Barbara Hall," Comic Book Legal Defense Fund website .[11] Art Spiegelman was one of many who drew a parallel between Irving Fiske and R. Crumb's mischievous "Guru,"Mr. Natural, whose cosmic pranks caused many to identify Fiske with the Underground Comix character.[12]

Isabella and Brion McFarlin have a son, Andrew D. F. McFarlin, born May 19, 1988, an attorney, and Isabella has a daughter, Joya A. Lonsdale, a psychotherapist, born August 3, 1971,whose father is Elllas Lonsdale,. astrologer and author of Inside Degrees and many other books on astrology and metaphysics. Lonsdale and Isabella parted ways when Joya was six weeks old, but remained friends.[13] Isabella and Brion have often said they consider all the children to have grown up at Quarry Hill to be, in a spiritual and emoitional sense, their own children.

Irving Fiske died of a stroke on April 25, 1990, in Ocala, Florida. "I have created this myself," he told the friends who were with him in Florida at the time of his death. William Fiske was present though Irving had lapsed into a coma by the time William was able to reach his bedside.,[14] Barbara Fiske continued to live and teach art at Quarry Hill into her 90s, eventually moving to a nursing home in White River Junction, VT, where she died after several days of peaceful fading rest with her daughter, son in law Brion, grandchildren and others present, reading her favorite poems and playing music for her, as well as providing her with the Quaker silence she and her daughter Isabella (Ladybelle) both valued. Isabella Fiske had become a member of the Society of Friends in 1982, in Middlebury, VT., and Barbara soon followed her into the same meeting.[15] No one was with Barbara at her moment of death, around 8:30 a.m. on April 28. 2014. but the nurses at Brookside Nursing Home reported that she died peacefully, essentially slipping off into death from sleep.[16] On April 10, 2016, Quarry Hill achieved its 70th year since Barbara and Irving Fiske bought the old mountain farm which became a place where "Joy and woe are woven fine, a clothing for the Soul Divine," as William Blake says. .[17]

In the summer of 2016, Quarry Hill celebrated its 32nd All Night Dance Party, begun in 1984 as a birthday party for Joya Allegra Fiske Lonsdale. Isabella Fiske McFarlin's daughter. (.[18] Years to come may see alterations in organizers and dates as well as customs and regulations surrounding the party, but there is no source stating that this celebration of a wholly avant-garde life will not continue. Plans are being discussed for a younger generation to take on Quarry Hill's guidance and return it fully to the artist's colony it was intended to be, but these plans have not yet reached fruition as of December 2016.

References

Notes

  1. 1 2 Associated Press "Vermont 'hippie commune' co-founder dies at 94," Salon (Apr. 29, 2014).
  2. ↑ Hartmann, Thom. The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight (New York: Three Rivers Press / Random House, 2004), pp. 309-11, 315 — calls Quarry Hill "The oldest "intentional community in Vermont"
  3. ↑ Trausch, V. "Where Have All the Flower Children Gone?" Boston Globe Sunday Magazine (August 2, 1987). Archived at the University of Vermont
  4. ↑ Freedom and Unity, The Vermont Movie, Part III (2013) — photo of Stephen Huneck standing by the old school bus at Quarry Hill in the 1960s.
  5. ↑ Fiske, Ladybelle, "Al Stirt, Bowlmaker, "Vermont Life," Magazine, Winter, 1978
  6. ↑ public State records
  7. ↑ wedding license on file in Rochester, VT
  8. ↑ Records of The University of Vermont and death certificate on file with the city of Burlington, VT.
  9. ↑ Calhoun, Donald W., Spirituality and Community, Schenkman Books, Rochester, VT.
  10. ↑ Spiegelman, Art,," MAUS,, A Survivor's Tale," Pantheon Books, 1987.
  11. ↑ Rubberstampmadness Magazine, #1, 1980, mention of Top-Drawer Rubber Stamp Co. on P. 10.
  12. ↑ "My hippie girlfriend's father, Irving Fiske, the Mr. Natural of the commune I was involved with." Spiegelman, Art, "METAMAUS," pp-24-25, Pantheon Books.
  13. ↑ Joya's birth certificate, on file in Hanover, New Hampshire, and Rochester, VT.
  14. ↑ , segment on Quarry Hill in the film "Freedom and Unity," and various oral history sources of persons with Irving at his death and in Quarry Hill at the time.
  15. ↑ Records of Middlebury Friends Meeting, Middlebury, VT.
  16. ↑ Death certificate of Isabelle Fiske Calhoun, on file in White River Junction, VT.
  17. ↑ Rochester town records show that Barbara FIske was the owner of the property and that the land was registered to her name on April 10, 1946 at 4:45 PM
  18. ↑ Facebook: Invitation to the Party by Katharina Françoise, Summer 2016

Sources

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