Old Stone Mill exercises student ingenuity

Author: Alexxa Gotthardt

Since this past spring, an air of mystery and anticipation has surrounded two buildings that recently became part of the College landscape - 51 Main and Old Stone Mill. This fall, through the combined efforts of the College's administration and its students, the once obscure real estate ventures have established a distinct form. Together, 51 Main and Old Stone Mill combine as a dynamic duo of student creativity in downtown Middlebury.

The College's extracurricular history has been somewhat tension filled. In recent years, numerous new facilities that house classrooms and academic centers have risen up on our bucolic campus. While study spaces multiply, however, venues for student activities outside the academic ivory tower seem to diminish or fall into disrepair. Where are the studios, the student galleries, and the performance spaces? Numerous student groups, individuals, and members of the administration recognized the need for a place where students could create, independent of the pressures of academia. This fall the College has found a set of spaces it hopes will fulfill these long-awaited needs in Old Stone Mill and 51 Main.

In September 2007, the College announced its lease of the former Eat Good Food space at 51 Main Street in downtown Middlebury. In April 2008, after numerous discussions and e-mails discussing the building's future, the space opened its doors as a chic, comfortable bar and performance venue. In January 2008, when the College purchased the historic Old Stone Mill through the gift of an anonymous donor, a similar ambiguity veiled the acquisition. Talk of an arts-related space dominated the discussion, but the specifics of Old Stone Mill's function still remained unanswered.

While 51 Main has been in business for several months, Old Stone Mill opened its doors to students of the College and residents of Middlebury for the first time Sunday, Sept. 7 at an open house event. In a series of emails sent at the end of the summer, President of the College Ronald D. Liebowitz, Elizabeth Robinson, Director of the Project on Innovation and Creativity in the Liberal Arts and Barbara Doyle-Wilch, Director of Cultural Activities, announced Old Stone Mill as a "laboratory of student creativity" to exist in collaboration with 51 Main. The decision for the use of the space was made in response to what Robinson described as "a huge need for space for student creativity and innovation." Robinson and Doyle-Wilch serve as staff advisors for Old Stone Mill and 51 Main.

The open house was offered as an introduction to the possibilities Old Stone Mill offers for creative and artistic ventures. Robinson and Wilch greeted visitors, but it was the students selected for Old Stone Mill's Review Board who manned the event. "The goal is to have students take over the planning, maintaining and promotion for the building," said Robinson. "We hope it will serve as a laboratory for new ideas, businesses and the Arts."

Visitors explored the four-story space, led by passionate members of Review Board, six students culled from a variety of classes and majors. The space itself is large and bright, punctuated by many large windows, worktables and charmingly rough-hewn wooden doorways.

The entrance of Old Stone Mill opens into a student art gallery to be curated by Elyse McNiff, graduate intern at the Middlebury College Museum of Art. Currently, an exhibition of study abroad photographs hangs on the gallery's walls. McNiff explained, however, that future exhibitions would be less formal and based on student requests to show their work or organize a themed show. Musings on large-scale installations and exhibitions of architectural models were already being dreamed up at the open house. Exhibitions will be open to the public.

The subsequent floors of Old Stone Mill house an assortment of meeting rooms, dubbed "creativity rooms" by the Review Board, rehearsal and performance spaces, lounges and kitchens.

"What we hope to offer is a place to inspire, to encourage and to foster the creation and refining of new ideas that may not take off in a dorm room," said Ria Shroff '09, a member of the Review Board. "Depending on their projects, students might use the spaces once a week or for a semester or maybe for a few hours. Regardless, our goal would be to ensure that their extra-curricular talents and ideas have a space where they could grow and change."

Old Stone Mill aims to attract creative ventures of all disciplines. According to Alex Benepe '09, a member of the Review Board, a diverse array of proposals have begun to sift in.

"[We hope] to allow student groups without an appropriate location on campus to have a place to set up a long term project, in any of the offices or larger studio or gallery spaces," said Benepe. "This can be anything ranging from studio arts and gallery openings, to a band or music project, to a research project or a small business."

As students begin to develop projects at Old Stone Mill, 51 Main will serve as a performance venue for students who wish to show their work in a more public setting.

"We look to work together on possible art, music, theater and even culinary performances," said Shroff on the planned collaboration between the two spaces.

Together, Old Stone Mill and 51 Main are poised to become a powerful resource for creative growth and invention at the College, not to mention a rich source of entertainment for the community.