By Polly Mikula
Killington has received a new accolate, but you probably wouldv’e guessed it’d be an international award for religious architecture and art. Partners for Sacred Places announced the winners that represent the best in architecture, liturgical design, and art for religious spaces. The 2024 awards recognized excellence in the creation and restoration of religious spaces, the designing of religious landscapes, and the making of religious art.
The Odeon at Mission Farm in Killington won the Sacred Landscape Award.
“Dan Snow’s phenomenal work, The Odeon in the Green Mountains was chosen by Partners for Sacred Places as an award winner in the category of sacred landscape. This work will be presented an award at the Interfaith Design’s reception at the AIA Annual Conference in June,” according to a recent news release.
“I’m so proud of the team that helped to make this happen,” said Lisa M. Ransom, executive director at Mission Farm. “We couldn’t have done it without the Vermont Art Council grants as well as very generous donors in our community… The goal was always to create a space for our community and to invite our community to be part of the space,” she said.
“For those who gathered at Mission Farm in the Green Mountains in recent years, the conversation centered on having more spaces to connect, share stories, and listen to music. By identifying common spaces and celebrating them, the group hoped to end isolation in their community and nurture a new relationship to the land that they steward,” Partners for Sacred Places continued on their website highlighting the award winners. “The community members wished to craft an assemblage of stones into a space that would concentrate the earth’s energy into a light-capturing atmosphere. Two belief systems would have to intersect and amplify one another to bring the project to successful completion.”
Ransom said Mission Farm has some concerts planned for spring/summer (weather permitting) and a few wedding planned as well as some educational programing in the near future. The award will be celebrated at its annual Meadows and Mountain Festival in August.
“Two weeks after the Odeon’s completion and three days after community volunteers rolled out fresh sod between the terraced seats, the 2023 Mountain and Meadows Festival took place. There was food and music, conversation, and reflection. People joined together to make the place come alive, and space and energy became one,” the Partners for Sacred Places stated.
The jury for the 2024 awards commented: “The larger stones act as an extension from the stone church. The level of detail in the placement of the stones makes it belong to the landscape, that it has always been here. Spirituality extends into the landscape.”
Dan Snow, the Odeon’s artist and stonemason, is Vermont born and raised. On his website, Snow is described as “an assemblage artist specializing in site-generated, or locally sourced, natural materials… From the practical to the fantastical, Snow’s works in stone fuse vanguard vision with old world techniques and traditions.”
For more info,visit: faithandformawards.com.
By Oliver Parini, courtesy Mission Farm
Visitors gather on the stone steps of the Odeon at Mission Farm, where art, nature, and community come together.
