In the tiny village of Grafton, just north of Townshend, is well known as the home of the Grafton Cheese Company and the Windham Foundation, which has spent the last forty years restoring many of the buildings including the 1801 inn known today the Old Tavern at Grafton. In this peaceful Vermont village, just a few steps up from its enduring landmark, is an unusual gallery that on a cold early winter afternoon entices the visitor in with a blazing fire and a remarkable collection of bronze sculptures. At first you may think you have come upon a stash of Frederick Remington's cowboys but on closer inspection realize these sculptures in all sizes are Native Americans, specifically Native Americans of the eastern woodlands.
Actually, the sculptor, Jud Hartmann is quite specific about not using the term Native Americans since that includes Indians of the western states that other artists have done. He is the first to concentrate on the eastern tribes, and he describes his work as being of "Indians."
The sculptor himself is in the back of the gallery working on a head of an Algonkian chief, gently teasing the soft clay with various molding tools to achieve just the amount of depth and detail. When he started over twenty years ago, Jud Hartmann had no idea whether anyone would be remotely interested in bronze statues of the Iroquoians and Algonkians as no one had ever portrayed them artistically. He nevertheless forged ahead with his plan, trusting that people would respond. And they did, right from the beginning. People were drawn to Hartmann's ability to portray the original inhabitants of New England with skill, authenticity and respect. His works are today on display in nearly every state of the union as well as England, Canada, Japan, Ireland, Mexico, Germany and South Africa.
Hartmann says he became an artist quite by chance. After graduating from Hobart College he went to St. Croix "because it was warm and sunny" and while there met a furniture maker who let him borrow a few tools. With the chisel and mallet in hand, he went to work sculpting a piece of mahogany and realized that he "was supposed to be a sculptor." His maternal great-great grandfather, he later found out, had been a marble sculptor. "I had an immediate realization that this was what I was supposed to do with my life."
His artistic journey took him through wood, stone and marble. His geographical journey to Grafton included a stop in Stowe, Vermont, where he met his wife Gretchen. They both loved cross-country skiing and came to Grafton one weekend for a change in scenery. By 1981 he had discovered bronze as his medium and after deciding to make Grafton their home, he began, in 1983, to concentrate on what he had chosen as his life's work: the depiction in bronze of the Woodland Tribes of the Northeast.
"I felt powerfully connected to this subject," he explains. "I had been drawn to this world as a boy and, because of my love of history, got reconnected to the subject shortly after I began working in bronze." Hartmann also played lacrosse at Hobart, a game with rich ceremonial meaning to the Native American tribes of New England and Canada.....
