Once upon a time, many of the galleries and pop-up venues of Burlington’s South End Art Hop had an underground, almost speakeasy feel. You would turn a corner and find a band playing in some industrial space surrounded by multimedia art or stumble upon some tiny chamber tucked beside a lumberyard, with a DJ spinning during a live sculpture session.
While the annual festival retains some of that scruffy energy, Art Hop has come a long way in its 33 years. Now, Pine Street is blocked off as scores of food trucks line the road and thousands flock to galleries, coffee shops, warehouses, studios and breweries for one of the Queen City’s biggest events of the year. But hidden down an alleyway off Howard Street, behind Speeder & Earl’s Coffee, there’s still a place flying the flag for the wild Art Hop spirit of yore: Green Door Studio.
“It kind of blows my mind how people think we only throw down during Art Hop. We’re year-round, baby.”
Will Clingenpeel
Established in 2002 by artists Lydia Bright and Drew Matott, Green Door has been going strong for more than 20 years, both as a vibrant home for an ever-changing lineup of local artists and as a live music venue. The studio, marked by its namesake emerald-colored door, is currently occupied and run by Burlington artists Steve Sharon, Scottie Raymond, Will Clingenpeel, Jesse Miles Snyder and Zach Crawford. The space sees a surge of interest during Art Hop, but according to Clingenpeel, Green Door’s role as a South End music and art hot spot extends well beyond the first weekend after Labor Day.
“I love Art Hop; it’s a big deal for artists and the community,” Clingenpeel, a multimedia painter, said. “But it kind of blows my mind how people think we only throw down during Art Hop. We’re year-round, baby.”
For the past three years, Clingenpeel and his fellow Green Door artists have curated art and music nights on the first Friday of every month. The series has grown more popular in the wake of Burlington venues such as Nectar’s, Despacito and Green Door’s former neighbor, ArtsRiot, shuttering in recent months.
“It sucks about the other venues, but with them gone, our attendance has been through the roof,” Clingenpeel said. “We’re the South End underground venue extraordinaire!”
Fittingly, Green Door is hosting a jam-packed Art Hop lineup, with live music and DJs scheduled for all three days of the festival. According to Clingenpeel, those shows will go later than most other Art Hop events — a nod to the late-night ragers of Art Hops past.
Friday night features singer-songwriter Dan Tomaino and his band the Sparrows, acoustic sets from Caleb Davis and Alissa Parrish, and a DJ set by Snyder and Anxiocide. Saturday night sees performances from Crawford, aka SkySplitterInk, and rapper Arkaik, and DJ sets from Raymond, Abstractive Dubs, Kanganade and others.
“It’s going to be kind of elastic,” he said. “We’re planning on having music all day, every day during the Hop, so some of the musicians will be jamming or playing together and playing more than once.”
Clingenpeel said to expect other surprises as well, including an interactive video projection and light installation, as well as plenty of musical collaboration.
Green Door will also host its Feral Art Market in the alleyway, featuring work by a dozen different artists who are unaffiliated with the Hop. Said Clingenpeel of the rogue pop-up: “It’s Green Door as fuck.”
Green Door Studio, 4 Howard St., Burlington, greendoorstudiovt.com
The original print version of this article was headlined “Feral Festivities | A throwback to Art Hop’s scruffy past, Green Door Studio keeps the scene wild”
This article appears in Art Hop Guide 2025.
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