Charlie Hunter
Bellows Falls, VT
Charlie Hunter is a cheerful guy who paints drippy portraits of decaying American infrastructure in Bellows Falls, Vermont.
MessageI have been visiting the rail yard around Bellows Falls, Vermont since the mid-1960's, when, as a toddler, I was given a cab ride in the switch engine that used to shunt cars around the various industries that were gamely hanging in there. By the time I moved to Bellows Falls at the turn of the millennium, the last few paper mills had, or were in the process of, breathing their last. The old Rutland Railroad yard got converted into Centennial Park (known locally as 'Pigeon Park') in the 70's, and the Cheshire line to Keene, NH and Ayer, MA, was torn up in the 1980's. But the feel of the depot area still has the unmistakable feel of a railroad town, and I love painting it. (Collection of Sharon Kegerris).