A couple hours before the total solar eclipse on Monday, just as the sun arced into the western sky in Charlotte, several dozen visitors arrived at Clemmons Family Farm.
They wandered inside a whitewashed building which once housed a blacksmith shop, then an African art mail-order import business. And now, for a brief time, it’s home to a new art exhibit, titled “Beneath Our Skin.”
The exhibit features poetry, a song, visual art and other storytelling from Black Vermonters and white health care providers, describing their emotions during the early rollout of COVID-19 vaccines.
"I'm hoping that it'll show the wide range of what was felt, so that people can understand that, you know, it wasn't just, 'Oh, Black Vermonters felt this one way.' It was — 'We felt everything,'" said Yanna Marie Orcel, the farm’s Wellness Arts Adviser. She curated this exhibit, which will open publicly in South Burlington and Brattleboro later this week.
Orcel pointed out an image on one wall that looked, in the abstract, like the shape of a person's head. Inside this head shape were many words and phrases in different colors and sizes, floating around like thoughts. In their center was a black, spiky object — similar to how COVID-19 appears under a microscope.
"This is the word cloud created," she said. "So these are the words that came up the most in the different stories. You'll see: Freedom, Tuskegee, Choice."
As Orcel described the word cloud, Rev. Co'Relous Bryant, who recently became the senior pastor at the United Church of Lincoln, listened.
"Look how big 'Tuskegee' is," Bryant said.
"Yes," Orcel agreed. "That came up a lot."
Bryant moved from New York City to Vermont last summer. And here, among so many white people, he said he notices a lack of cultural wisdom about things like the Tuskegee Experiment — when the federal government denied hundreds of Black men access to penicillin for decades in order to study the effect of syphilis on their bodies.
"Pretty well documented facts and cases that laid the foundation for certain communities to be skeptical of the medical advice coming from the government," he said.
But here, at an exhibit at one of the largest historic African American-owned farms in Vermont today, Bryant said he was feeling nourished by the stories, voices, language and imagery of Black people.
"Anything that's sort of Black-centric is kind of a refuge for me, and I'm seeking them out," he said. "Because I have come to realize how sustaining these moments are going to be, finding Black community, Black thought. And so yeah, this is a godsend — I'm a pastor, forgive me — but a godsend for sure."
For 61 years, Jackson and Lydia Clemmons owned their farm in Charlotte. Then in 2023, a nonprofit led by their daughter, Dr. Lydia Clemmons, purchased the 138-acre Clemmons Family Farm.
Among the nonprofit’s stated intentions for this preserved land is to give Black artists an opportunity to thrive, and to do so in a loving, multicultural community.
And what that looks like in practice? Take the “Beneath Our Skin” exhibit. It showcases both art and data, according to curator Yanna Marie Orcel, in an effort to improve future vaccine uptake. It hopes to do this by illuminating the needs and perceptions of Black Vermonters, as well as the caregiving behaviors of their primarily white health care providers.
One of the steps toward a goal like this, said board of directors member Robin Anthony Kouyate, is to hold events that allow people to connect on an emotional level.
"Part of building community relations, social cohesion, you know — yes, we might want to talk and exchange, we also just want to feel and experience together," Kouyate said. "That’s where the Bliss Eclipse takes place."
"Bliss Eclipse" was the event name for everything that happened at Clemmons Family Farm on Monday — the exhibit opening, and of course a viewing of the total solar eclipse. As far as shared experiences go, Kouyate said the eclipse was a natural opportunity.
"We happen to be in that pathway, and to say, 'Hey, this is a moment we should not let pass,'" she said.
"First of all when I heard about the farm, I lost my mind," said Rev. Bryant. "And then when I got an invitation to this event, the mind came back — and I lost it a second time."
Bryant says another difference he’s noticed between Vermont and New York City is the awareness here of natural phenomena, like the eclipse.
"And having that sensitivity now is really cool. Something, again, in the concrete jungle of New York, nobody — nobody cared," he said with a laugh. "Well, no one in my circle seemed to care."
In this circle, Bliss Eclipse event attendees looked through cards with holes in them to see the crescent shadows of the partially eclipsed sun. They observed what wildlife was doing as it grew darker and colder — i.e., all the mosquitos coming out. And sitting on this hillside above rolling meadows, the Adirondack Mountains and Lake Champlain, they experienced nearly three minutes of totality.
Elsie Berrouet, her daughter Maya Berrouet-Oge, and Pievy Polyte all sat together on the grass during totality. And they all said they felt something mystic.
"For a few second, my heart was beating," Berrouet said. "I was laying there and my heart was beating very fast. And I'm already an emotional person. You know, I live with my feelings — and I felt bizarre at certain time."
"I felt like, a call to remain more positive, just to remove like, negative thoughts," Berrouet-Oge said. She added of the eclipse: "Some people say that it's called for a renewal in our lives. So I guess some of us are able to feel it, inside of us."
"Some people have high energy, like in a full moon, you can feel that," Polyte said. "So when that happened, I can feel it, too — a lot of energy."
The energy continued on Monday afternoon inside the Barn House at Clemmons Family Farm. There, Bliss Eclipse attendees snacked and played music together before heading home.
Local visual artist Julio Desmont, who played harmonica during the jam session, said he came to the event for connection. And that, by the end, he found it.
"I could really feel like, you know, I was in perfect … synchronization with the sun and the moon. And it feels so good, right?" Desmont said. "I’m so happy — the eclipse is something else."
When the sun went dark, he said, he went dark. And when the light returned, he said he, too, was shining and bright again.
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