The event included museum exhibits, live demonstrations, and family fun.

By Zach Yang

BARRE — On Saturday, Sept. 19, visitors young and old traveled to the Vermont Granite Museum to attend this year’s Granite Festival. From watching demonstrations by real carvers to going on a scavenger hunt of the exhibits, there was much to do and see.

The festival was also a celebration of how Vermont’s granite industry is not merely a rich tradition but also a vibrant part of the present. 

“The granite industry has a great deal of depth in its history,” said granite museum director Scott McLaughlin, who spent the day chatting with visitors and overseeing the festival. “It continues to serve not only those within the state, but those within the entire nation.”

“Barre Gray” granite is renowned for its durability and hardness, making it a popular choice for monument sculpting. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the high quality stone drew a massive influx of immigrants to Barre.

Ryan Mays, a sculptor who has worked in the industry for 25 years, said Barre granite is still a draw.

“It’s the place,” he said. 

During the festival, Mays worked on a clay model of a beagle. These models are used by sculptors to work out the details of a piece and create a plan before moving to the real stone. May’s clay beagle was about 2 feet tall, but the granite sculpture it had once been the model for was about four times that, reaching 8 feet tall. 

Mays said Barre is a great place to learn the stone trade. But he also said there are fewer granite sculptors to learn from. When Mays started the craft 25 years ago, there were a few dozen, he said.

But “as they get older, they’re not really being replaced at the same rate,” Mays said.

The Granite Museum makes efforts to educate about the stone arts. With the creation of the Museum was the conception of the Stone Arts School alongside it. Recently, the school has had great success in working with passionate sculptors, mostly in their 20s and 30s, in building their portfolio and developing their craft, McLaughlin, the museum director, said.

“They’re growing as artists and will become more valuable to the granite industry and the sculptors that they work along with,” McLaughlin said.

The Stone Trust, a nonprofit focused on the craft of dry stone walling, has also established a training site at the museum. The trust offers several wall-making courses and certifications.

At the festival, participants in a one-day workshop led by the Stone Trust took apart a stone wall. The workshop showed the process of dry stone walling, and over the course of the day, the participants disassembled and reassembled the wall, learning what goes into its construction. 

As the festival celebrated the rich history of the industry, a large train rolled past on the nearby tracks. It was packed with stone, a further reminder that the industry is still very much alive.

Via Community News Service, a University of Vermont journalism internship, for the Times Argus