Barre Honors Sue Higby for 20 Years of Leadership at Studio Place Arts 

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• Jeb Wallace-Brodeur
• Sue Higby

For more than 18 years, Indiana sculptor Rob Millard-Mendez has entered his mixed-media assemblages in shows at Studio Place Arts in Barre. And every time, he has sent the work in pieces, entrusting the meticulous assembly to executive director Sue Higby. An especially complicated one with many miniature parts was aptly titled "Not for Sissies," she recalled.

"I've got bragging rights to having assembled more than 40 of Rob's sculptures, all shipped from his studio in Evansville, Ind.," Higby said. "Sometimes he sends 10 to 14 pages of handwritten instructions with drawings. It's a terrific challenge."

It seems there's nothing Higby likes more than a challenge, and she faced a big one — make that lots of big ones — when she took the director's reins of Studio Place Arts in 2003. According to a vivid description from artist Janet Van Fleet — a cofounder of the arts center who maintains a studio on its third floor — Higby faced "a burnt-out historic building filled with pigeon crap and vermin and ignored for four-plus years," not to mention "no money and no donors and no members and no programs. No reputation!"

A Michigan native, Higby, 62, had a previous career in environmental policy in Washington, D.C., then moved to Vermont — "a treasure of a spot," she said — for entirely different opportunities. In the early, floundering years of SPA, Higby volunteered, then joined the board, then stepped in as interim director.

"I thought, I'll rebuild relationships, build up the bank account. I knew it would take a while," she said.

She would go on to steer SPA through aggressive fundraising, a costly renovation and a period when the city's Main Street redevelopment project cut off access to the building's front door — and through local and national economic downturns, as well as a global pandemic.

Higby has no regrets. If she's handy putting things together, she has also passionately held myriad things together for the nonprofit arts organization and the 1885 building in which it now thrives. One day a week she has help from current administrative associate Athena Petra Tasiopoulos, and Higby credits a gallery committee that "brainstorms ideas." But much of her work has been done almost single-handedly.

On Tuesday, February 7, Higby received some well-deserved official accolades. In a ceremony before the Barre City Council, Rep. Peter Anthony (D-Barre) enumerated her contributions in a House resolution. "During her tenure in this position, SPA has grown to become a regional cultural organization of great distinction," it begins.

The proclamation acknowledges Higby's curation of an annual stone-arts exhibit, which centers local granite carvers and Barre's cultural history, and 18 retrospective shows for accomplished elder Vermont artists. It also touts the establishment of year-round themed exhibitions, educational programs for adults and children, synergetic relationships with other Vermont organizations, and the creation and oversight of an Art Stroll map guiding visitors to "Barre's stone assets" — that is, the many granite sculptures old and new along the Main Street corridor.

"Susan Higby has been a tireless advocate for the arts, supporting many other arts start-ups in the state by sharing her expertise in development and best practices for arts organizations," the proclamation concludes.

At the same event on Tuesday, Barre Mayor Jake Hemmerick handed Higby a key to the city. That honor, though only symbolic, might be especially sweet: In 2018, Higby, then a city councilor, ran for mayor herself, losing to fellow councilor Lucas Herring. About the current mayor, Higby said, "He's one of my neighbors, and I feel he's doing a wonderful job." In a phone call, Hemmerick returned the compliment, calling Higby "a dynamic leader."

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• Courtesy Of Athena Petra Tasiopoulos
• Sue Higby with a successfully assembled Rob Millard-Mendez sculpture

Though Higby hasn't run for public office again — so far — she hasn't eschewed municipal engagement. She has served on the Civic Center Committee for nine years, previously as chair and currently as vice chair. The group succeeded in persuading the Norwich University School of Engineering to choose Barre Auditorium, or AUD, as a senior project. This semester, a group of students and faculty will analyze the 1939 structure and consider functional improvements that would enable expanded usage.

In addition, Higby noted, "I am pleased to say that the AUD was recently named a recipient of a major earmark via Sen. Sanders' office — around $3.5 million."

It's hard to fathom how Higby has the bandwidth for any endeavors outside SPA. The accomplishments lauded in the House resolution only hit the highlights of her work for and at the gallery. They didn't include, for example, navigating that arduous renovation and multiple floods in the basement, or expanding the exhibitions program from the main floor to the second- and third-floor hallways, as well as to auxiliary downtown locations including AR Market and Morse Block.

"Sue quickly saw that the other public spaces could be very useful for exhibition," Van Fleet said. "The additional SPA galleries and remote spaces are for solo and small group shows, which allows more opportunities to show work. It's another example of Sue's efforts to support artists."

Higby even invented another gallery within SPA by acquiring and repurposing an old phone booth. Cheekily dubbed Quick Change Gallery (think Superman), it accommodates minuscule exhibitions.

Renting studio space has been key to both supporting artists and bringing in revenue for the organization. SPA accommodates 14 individual and shared artist studios, as well as a small room for its annual artist-in-residence — another Higby initiative.

For the past eight years, Matthew Monk has been one of those renters. After teaching for 20 years at the Rhode Island School of Design, the North Carolina native moved even farther north to become academic dean of the Vermont College of Fine Arts in Montpelier. In his third-floor studio at SPA, he works on mixed-media collages informed by his training in graphic design.

"I really love it," Monk said of the space. "Sue is just amazing, so dedicated to SPA and to the artists, to local arts and arts in general. If we were writing [her] job description, it would include curator, program manager, landlord, facilities director, cheerleader. She's willing to do whatever it takes to make SPA successful."

Van Fleet put it this way: "You have to have a vision and some chops to start from zero and accelerate. Sue is always spinning new ideas and has the energy to see them through."

A person needs all these qualities to be a tireless ambassador for the city, and history, of Barre, as well as a fierce advocate for artists. Millard-Mendez feels that even from Indiana, and his admiration goes beyond Higby's adroit assemblage. An artist who has exhibited in numerous venues nationally and internationally, he declared Higby "the kindest, most helpful, most professional person I have worked with."

Higby said one of her proudest accomplishments at SPA is the Freedom of Expression Policy she wrote in 2004. She believes it might be the only such statement in a Vermont arts venue. "It gives artists the freedom to make what they want to make," she said. "When I have a new donor visit, that's the first thing I show them." In fact, the policy is posted near the gallery's front entrance.

"I come out of a research background, where freedom of inquiry is essential," Higby continued. "[At SPA,] we have taken work that was banned at certain Burlington galleries. We have artists who are making really interesting work and deserve to show it."

In 2003, did she imagine she'd still be at SPA 20 years later?

"No, I had no idea!" Higby said with a hearty guffaw. "My parents asked me why I stay with this. The reward you feel is always related to the significant challenge in front of you. I didn't think I would find something this hard in Vermont, but I did. It's been very exciting."

Correction, February 9, 2023: An earlier version of this story misrepresented one of the auxiliary venues curated by SPA.