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On Parker Pond, Mount Vernon, Maine
A summer place dedicated to the nourishment of the creative arts:
theatre, dance, poetry, music, and graphic arts, and to healthy physical activities.
Week-long workshops are held for professional and pre-professional dancers. |
Bearnstow is located on sixty-five acres of wooded land on Parker Pond in Mount Vernon, Maine, at the headwaters of the west branch of the Forty Mile River, part of the Androscoggin watershed. Our 2,400 feet of shoreline and twelve rustic buildings, most nearly a century old, are protected by conservation easement by the Kennebec Land Trust. Our oldest structure, the Lodge, was the only building on the lake
on the 1880 geological survey. Bearnstow is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
Founded in 1946 by Ruth Grauert and Frances Reid, Bearnstow has had a rich history of arts-related activities linked to a practice of environmental responsibility. Throughout our history the resonance of place in all activities has been central to our mission. Our unspoiled environment provides an alternative freedom for aesthetic expression away from the constrictions of city life. Our attention to the care of place, land, and spirit is central to our daily practice.
Bearnstow’s current summer programs, directed by Ruth Grauert and Bebe Miller, for both adults and children, emphasize the connection between environment and learning. The immediacy of our natural surroundings affects the breadth and depth of the learning that takes place, for both teacher and student. For adults we offer weeklong workshops in movement studies for professional and pre-professional dancers taught by a world-class faculty. For a snapshot of a dancer's summer experience at Bearnstow, read Stories From Camp by Susan Douglas Roberts. For children we offer a two-week Day Camp
session in arts and creative physical activities, with classes in dance, art, swimming, and horsemanship.
In addition to Ruth Grauert and Bebe Miller, our
Board of Directors also include:
- Andrew Bloom, a lawyer living and working in Portland, ME;
- Nicolaus Bloom, a free-lance events producer from Portland, ME;
- Vernon Dunn, designer of industrial trusses living in Belgrade, ME;
- Bobbie Gottschalk, founder/director, Seeds of Peace, Washington, DC
- Suzanne Jones, Ph.D., a psychologist living in Arlington, VA;
- Susan Liebling, a realtor living in Mount Vernon, ME; and
- Jim Van Abbema, Webmaster and wildlife biologist in the Bronx, NY.
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Acknowledgments
Volunteers Janet Erickson and
Mary Jo Wolsky
glove up to go to work.
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We wish to thank the following for contributions and/or in-kind services to Bearnstow during the 2007 season: Pamela Blake, Peter Davis, Joanne DeMariano, Deborah Doten, Mary Therese Duffy, Vernon Dunn, Janet Erickson, Laura Faure, June D. Finkle, Barbara Gottschalk, Ruth Grauert, Howard Lake, Margery Lieber, Susan Liebling, Allyson Jones, Barbara and Ford Jones, Claire and Peter Jones, Suzanne Dalton Jones, Bebe Miller, Sandra Merrick, Lynn Needle, June and Nick Nicoli, Donna and Kevin Oliver, Ralph and Ramona Pace, Cele and Iz Risen, Shamou, Jim Van Abbema, and Clyde Walton.
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