Quarry Hill Creative Center
Encyclopedia
Quarry Hill Creative Center, in Rochester, Vermont
, is Vermont's oldest alternative living group or community.
(born Irving Fishman in Brooklyn
, New York
, on March 5, 1908), a playwright, inventor, freelance writer, and speaker, and his wife, Barbara Hall Fiske, (born Isabelle Daniel Hall in Tucson, Arizona
on September 9, 1919), an artist and one of the few female cartoonists of the World War II era, bought 140 acre (0.5665604 km²) of mountain, meadow, and brook land in Rochester, Vermont. They had been married on January 8, 1946.
Irving, a 1928 graduate of Cornell University
, worked for the Federal Writer's Project of the WPA
(Works Progress Administration) during the 1930s. Fiske also wrote for H. L. Mencken
's American Mercury [vol. 48 (December 1939), pp. 403–7], had corresponded with George Bernard Shaw
, had written an article praised by critic Colin Wilson, among others, "Bernard Shaw's Debt to William Blake", and had translated Shakespeare's Hamlet
into modern English. This was considered a controversial literary action at the time. John Ciardi, who did not approve, reprinted excerpts in the Saturday Review. Most readers wrote in favor of the translation.
Barbara was one of the few female comic book artists in the United States during the World War II era. She drew Girl Commandos and other strips for Harvey Comics, signing herself B. Hall because female cartoon
ists were not held in high esteem.
. They did so on the advice of A.S. Neill of Summerhill School
in England. The Fiskes were opposed to spanking
or corporal punishment
of children, indeed, punishment of any kind; and most schools of the time used corporal punishment.
William later earned two Masters' Degrees, in computer science and in history, from the University of Vermont. At the time of his death on July 18, 2008, he was in the process of seeking a Ph. D in computer science. Isabella became a writer and children's rights activist. In the 1960s, Isabella became friends with many well-known underground cartoonists, including R. Crumb, Trina Robbins
, Kim Deitch
, and Spain Rodriguez
. Isabella and Art Spiegelman
later author of Maus
, met in 1966, through a group of Spiegelman's fellow-students at the State University of New York at Binghamton. Spiegelman and Isabella were a couple for some time, and later friends. In 1978 Spiegelman, Françoise Mouly
, and some Quarry Hill residents created Top-Drawer Rubber Stamp Company, featuring art by R. Crumb, Spiegelman, and other cartoonists and artists, including Barbara Fiske. This art rubber stamp company provided employment for many Quarry Hill residents.
Mouly and Spiegelman continued to visit Quarry Hill for many years.
In the mid-Sixties, Barbara opened a storefront, The Gallery Gwen, in New York's East Village
. There Barbara showed her paintings, along with those of others, and Irving began to give public talks on Tantra
, Zen
, Sufism
, Hinduism
, Christianity
, Judaism
, and atheism
, among many other things. He soon spoke to many standing-room-only audiences. In time he would also speak in colleges and churches on the East Coast, such as Goddard College
in Plainfield, Vermont
and in many other locations.
He spoke out in favor of people finding their own creative path in life, enjoying themselves, being free of guilt and shame, and children's rights. He wrote letters for young men who were conscientious objectors to the Vietnam War
. He was called "The Forest Wizard," and in Florida
, where he had a cabin on a lake, "The Socrates of the Ocala National Forest." Irving was a controversial figure. In the 1970s, when his cabin in the Ocala Forest was burnt by arsonists, and the authorities did not give him a permit to rebuild, he launched a legal and media battle, claiming that the authorities were prejudiced against the young people he brought there as his friends, most of whom had long hair. He eventually got the permit and rebuilt the cabin.
of the Sixties
and Seventies
began, hundreds of people, from all over the world, began to pour through Quarry Hill. Many people wanted to build houses at Quarry Hill, and they did. 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 school, The North Hollow School. Many graduates of the school have gone on to college and graduate school.
In 1976, Irving and Barbara divorced.
The land is now managed by a rental corporation owned by the family, and residents with houses have lengthy easements.
Many changes have occurred over the years at Quarry Hill. It has had its own private K-12 school 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 deleterious effect on children of spanking and other violence. The one central principle at Quarry Hill is that no violence towards children is permitted. Quarry Hill's land is under a covenant that outlaws spanking, slapping, and the denigration or neglect of children. Quarry Hill also permits no hunting, fishing, or animal slaughter. But there are few other rules. One rule remains, however: no roosters allowed. This is a strange idiosyncrasy of those who enjoy sleeping.
Irving, became well-known in the counterculture both in the United States and elsewhere. He died of a stroke in Ocala, Florida
, on April 25, 1990.
Barbara remarried Dr. Donald Calhoun (June 14, 1917 - May 5, 2009), a writer, sociology professor and a Quaker like herself. Barbara Fiske Calhoun lives and teaches art at Quarry Hill (as of 2011). William Fiske died in his sleep on July 18, 2008,
in Burlington
, Vermont
.
The Fiske family does not consider Quarry Hill a "commune", as property is not communally owned; rentals or fees are charged for residence at Quarry Hill, and the land continues to belong to the Fiskes.
Rochester, Vermont
Rochester is a town in Windsor County, Vermont, United States. The population was 1,171 at the 2000 census. Rochester is home to the Quarry Hill Creative Center...
, is Vermont's oldest alternative living group or community.
History
On April 10, 1946, Irving FiskeIrving Fiske
Irving Fiske born Irving Fishman in Brooklyn, New York, was a playwright, inventor, freelance writer, and speaker...
(born Irving Fishman in Brooklyn
Brooklyn
Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...
, New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, on March 5, 1908), a playwright, inventor, freelance writer, and speaker, and his wife, Barbara Hall Fiske, (born Isabelle Daniel Hall in Tucson, Arizona
Arizona
Arizona ; is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. It is also part of the western United States and the mountain west. The capital and largest city is Phoenix...
on September 9, 1919), an artist and one of the few female cartoonists of the World War II era, bought 140 acre (0.5665604 km²) of mountain, meadow, and brook land in Rochester, Vermont. They had been married on January 8, 1946.
Irving, a 1928 graduate of Cornell University
Cornell University
Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...
, worked for the Federal Writer's Project of the WPA
Works Progress Administration
The Works Progress Administration was the largest and most ambitious New Deal agency, employing millions of unskilled workers to carry out public works projects, including the construction of public buildings and roads, and operated large arts, drama, media, and literacy projects...
(Works Progress Administration) during the 1930s. Fiske also wrote for H. L. Mencken
H. L. Mencken
Henry Louis "H. L." Mencken was an American journalist, essayist, magazine editor, satirist, acerbic critic of American life and culture, and a scholar of American English. Known as the "Sage of Baltimore", he is regarded as one of the most influential American writers and prose stylists of the...
's American Mercury [vol. 48 (December 1939), pp. 403–7], had corresponded with George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...
, had written an article praised by critic Colin Wilson, among others, "Bernard Shaw's Debt to William Blake", and had translated Shakespeare's Hamlet
Hamlet
The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, or more simply Hamlet, is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1599 and 1601...
into modern English. This was considered a controversial literary action at the time. John Ciardi, who did not approve, reprinted excerpts in the Saturday Review. Most readers wrote in favor of the translation.
Barbara was one of the few female comic book artists in the United States during the World War II era. She drew Girl Commandos and other strips for Harvey Comics, signing herself B. Hall because female cartoon
Cartoon
A cartoon is a form of two-dimensional illustrated visual art. While the specific definition has changed over time, modern usage refers to a typically non-realistic or semi-realistic drawing or painting intended for satire, caricature, or humor, or to the artistic style of such works...
ists were not held in high esteem.
Creation of Quarry Hill
At Quarry Hill, the Fiskes' intention was to create an artists’ and writers’ retreat, a gathering place for creative and freethinking people. They had two children, Isabella (also called Ladybelle) and William. During the 1950s and early 1960s, the family traveled to keep their children out of the strict public schools of the day, which the Fiskes regarded as "Dark Satanic Mills That Grind Men's Souls to Dust," in the words of William BlakeWilliam Blake
William Blake was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of both the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age...
. They did so on the advice of A.S. Neill of Summerhill School
Summerhill School
Summerhill School is an independent British boarding school that was founded in 1921 by Alexander Sutherland Neill with the belief that the school should be made to fit the child, rather than the other way around...
in England. The Fiskes were opposed to spanking
Spanking
Spanking refers to the act of striking the buttocks of another person to cause temporary pain without producing physical injury. It generally involves one person striking the buttocks of another person with an open hand. When an open hand is used, spanking is referred to in some countries as...
or corporal punishment
Corporal punishment
Corporal punishment is a form of physical punishment that involves the deliberate infliction of pain as retribution for an offence, or for the purpose of disciplining or reforming a wrongdoer, or to deter attitudes or behaviour deemed unacceptable...
of children, indeed, punishment of any kind; and most schools of the time used corporal punishment.
William later earned two Masters' Degrees, in computer science and in history, from the University of Vermont. At the time of his death on July 18, 2008, he was in the process of seeking a Ph. D in computer science. Isabella became a writer and children's rights activist. In the 1960s, Isabella became friends with many well-known underground cartoonists, including R. Crumb, Trina Robbins
Trina Robbins
Trina Robbins is an American comics artist and writer. She was an early and influential participant in the underground comix movement, and one of the few female artists in underground comix when she started. Both as a cartoonist and historian, Robbins has long been involved in creating outlets for...
, Kim Deitch
Kim Deitch
-Sources:* at Lambiek's Comiclopedia-External links:* Ford, Jeffrey. *Heller, Steven. **...
, and Spain Rodriguez
Spain Rodriguez
Manuel Rodriguez , better known as Spain or Spain Rodriguez, is an American underground cartoonist who created the character Trashman. His experiences on the road with the biker gang, the Road Vultures, provided inspiration for his work, as did his left-wing politics.-Biography:Born in Buffalo, New...
. Isabella and Art Spiegelman
Art Spiegelman
Art Spiegelman is an American comics artist, editor, and advocate for the medium of comics, best known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning comic book memoir, Maus. His works are published with his name in lowercase: art spiegelman.-Biography:Spiegelman was born in Stockholm, Sweden, to Polish Jews...
later author of Maus
Maus
Maus: A Survivor's Tale, by Art Spiegelman, is a biography of the author's father, Vladek Spiegelman, a Polish Jew and Holocaust survivor. It alternates between descriptions of Vladek's life in Poland before and during the Second World War and Vladek's later life in the Rego Park neighborhood of...
, met in 1966, through a group of Spiegelman's fellow-students at the State University of New York at Binghamton. Spiegelman and Isabella were a couple for some time, and later friends. In 1978 Spiegelman, Françoise Mouly
Françoise Mouly
Françoise Mouly is a Paris-born French artist and designer best known for her work with RAW, a showcase publication for cutting edge comic art, and as art editor of The New Yorker, a position she has held since 1993...
, and some Quarry Hill residents created Top-Drawer Rubber Stamp Company, featuring art by R. Crumb, Spiegelman, and other cartoonists and artists, including Barbara Fiske. This art rubber stamp company provided employment for many Quarry Hill residents.
Mouly and Spiegelman continued to visit Quarry Hill for many years.
In the mid-Sixties, Barbara opened a storefront, The Gallery Gwen, in New York's East Village
East Village, Manhattan
The East Village is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, lying east of Greenwich Village, south of Gramercy and Stuyvesant Town, and north of the Lower East Side...
. There Barbara showed her paintings, along with those of others, and Irving began to give public talks on Tantra
Tantra
Tantra , anglicised tantricism or tantrism or tantram, is the name scholars give to an inter-religious spiritual movement that arose in medieval India, expressed in scriptures ....
, Zen
Zen
Zen is a school of Mahāyāna Buddhism founded by the Buddhist monk Bodhidharma. The word Zen is from the Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese word Chán , which in turn is derived from the Sanskrit word dhyāna, which can be approximately translated as "meditation" or "meditative state."Zen...
, Sufism
Sufism
Sufism or ' is defined by its adherents as the inner, mystical dimension of Islam. A practitioner of this tradition is generally known as a '...
, Hinduism
Hinduism
Hinduism is the predominant and indigenous religious tradition of the Indian Subcontinent. Hinduism is known to its followers as , amongst many other expressions...
, Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
, Judaism
Judaism
Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...
, and atheism
Atheism
Atheism is, in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence of deities. In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities...
, among many other things. He soon spoke to many standing-room-only audiences. In time he would also speak in colleges and churches on the East Coast, such as Goddard College
Goddard College
Goddard College is a private, liberal arts college located in Plainfield, Vermont, offering undergraduate and graduate degree programs. Goddard College currently operates on an intensive low-residency model...
in Plainfield, Vermont
Plainfield, Vermont
Plainfield is a town in Washington County, Vermont, United States. The population was 1,286 at the 2000 census.-Geography:Plainfield is located at ....
and in many other locations.
He spoke out in favor of people finding their own creative path in life, enjoying themselves, being free of guilt and shame, and children's rights. He wrote letters for young men who were conscientious objectors to the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
. He was called "The Forest Wizard," and in Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
, where he had a cabin on a lake, "The Socrates of the Ocala National Forest." Irving was a controversial figure. In the 1970s, when his cabin in the Ocala Forest was burnt by arsonists, and the authorities did not give him a permit to rebuild, he launched a legal and media battle, claiming that the authorities were prejudiced against the young people he brought there as his friends, most of whom had long hair. He eventually got the permit and rebuilt the cabin.
Expansion
When the countercultural movementCounterculture
Counterculture is a sociological term used to describe the values and norms of behavior of a cultural group, or subculture, that run counter to those of the social mainstream of the day, the cultural equivalent of political opposition. Counterculture can also be described as a group whose behavior...
of the Sixties
1960s
The 1960s was the decade that started on January 1, 1960, and ended on December 31, 1969. It was the seventh decade of the 20th century.The 1960s term also refers to an era more often called The Sixties, denoting the complex of inter-related cultural and political trends across the globe...
and Seventies
1970s
File:1970s decade montage.png|From left, clockwise: US President Richard Nixon doing the V for Victory sign after his resignation from office after the Watergate scandal in 1974; Refugees aboard a US naval boat after the Fall of Saigon, leading to the end of the Vietnam War in 1975; The 1973 oil...
began, hundreds of people, from all over the world, began to pour through Quarry Hill. Many people wanted to build houses at Quarry Hill, and they did. 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 school, The North Hollow School. Many graduates of the school have gone on to college and graduate school.
In 1976, Irving and Barbara divorced.
The land is now managed by a rental corporation owned by the family, and residents with houses have lengthy easements.
Many changes have occurred over the years at Quarry Hill. It has had its own private K-12 school based on the principles of the Fiske family and of Summerhill School
Summerhill School
Summerhill School is an independent British boarding school that was founded in 1921 by Alexander Sutherland Neill with the belief that the school should be made to fit the child, rather than the other way around...
in England, and ran Free The Kids! Program, which offers educational material on the deleterious effect on children of spanking and other violence. The one central principle at Quarry Hill is that no violence towards children is permitted. Quarry Hill's land is under a covenant that outlaws spanking, slapping, and the denigration or neglect of children. Quarry Hill also permits no hunting, fishing, or animal slaughter. But there are few other rules. One rule remains, however: no roosters allowed. This is a strange idiosyncrasy of those who enjoy sleeping.
Irving, became well-known in the counterculture both in the United States and elsewhere. He died of a stroke in Ocala, Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
, on April 25, 1990.
Barbara remarried Dr. Donald Calhoun (June 14, 1917 - May 5, 2009), a writer, sociology professor and a Quaker like herself. Barbara Fiske Calhoun lives and teaches art at Quarry Hill (as of 2011). William Fiske died in his sleep on July 18, 2008,
in Burlington
Burlington, Vermont
Burlington is the largest city in the U.S. state of Vermont and the shire town of Chittenden County. Burlington lies south of the U.S.-Canadian border and some south of Montreal....
, Vermont
Vermont
Vermont is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state ranks 43rd in land area, , and 45th in total area. Its population according to the 2010 census, 630,337, is the second smallest in the country, larger only than Wyoming. It is the only New England...
.
The Fiske family does not consider Quarry Hill a "commune", as property is not communally owned; rentals or fees are charged for residence at Quarry Hill, and the land continues to belong to the Fiskes.