Vinalhaven resident, Scott Candage, a student at Goddard College in Plainfield, Vermont, recently mounted an exhibit “Hard Stone, Hard Choices” for the island community to view before presenting it as part of his master’s degree thesis. The “temporary arts,” multi-media installation in the historic Pleasant River Grange Hall commemorates the lives of 10 of Vinalhaven’s citizens whose lives were deeply affected by the choices they faced during Vinalhaven’s century-long quarry industry between 1826-1939.
Candage said that wanted the installation to present “not just celebratory narratives, but also address difficult aspects of the community’s heritage,” and added that he hoped “this memory project facilitates an emotional, rather than just intellectual connection” with the personal stories he presents.
For the installation in the grange hall, Candage mounted historic images of the men and women whose lives he profiles. Inspired by Edgar Lee Master’s Spoon River Anthology, Candage has framed first person narratives that capture the beauty and tragedy of his characters’ lives. Two of the profiles are of Finnish immigrant women. Alma Lakstrom, whose wedding ceremony pictured in Vinalhaven’s Armbrust Hill quarry, is now part of the island’s working history and folklore. Elina Tuomi, another Finnish immigrant, had to make the decision to leave her daughter behind when she came to Vinalhaven and never saw her again. Charles Ahearn, perhaps the island’s most a talented stone carver, is pictured along with the gravestone he carved for himself after he became fatally ill from breathing the granite dust.
At the foot of each of these memorials, mounted on tall, gray sponge-painted panels reminiscent of gravestones, is a basket of granite chips, mementoes Candage hopes each visitor will keep to “inspire you to reflect on your own sense of identity, place the past and heritage.” Candage himself is related on his mother’s side to one of the exhibit’s featured narratives, that of Lydia Webster, who ran the boarding house that housed many of the immigrant families who worked in the quarries. That boarding house is now the Pleasant River Grange, where Candage mounted the exhibit and collected notes and personal observations from each of the attendees during the week of the show.
Scott Candage’s “Hard Stone, Hard Choices” installation is part of Goddard College’s Master’s of Arts degree in Heritage, Place, Cultural Memory and Interdisciplinary Arts.