Art Review: Shelter Cultivation Project, Karma Bird House Gallery 

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• Courtesy Of Shelter Cultivation Project
• "Beginnings" by Dylan Fant

Of all the ulterior motives one could have for mounting an art show, creating community is a pretty good one. That's what Shawn Dumont had in mind when he assembled the Shelter Cultivation Project this past year.

The outcome is a large group exhibition that opened at Burlington's Karma Bird House Gallery this month. Bonus feature: a tiny pop-up shop in the "vault" — a former walk-in safe in the postindustrial building on lower Maple Street.

Dumont, 42, invited participants from as close as next door to him (Michael Tonn) and as far away as Tokyo (Toshifumi Kiuchi). The artworks are two-dimensional — drawings, paintings, screen prints, weavings — with three exceptions: ceramic sculptures by Alex Kovacs, a wall-hung installation by Lydia Kern and layered acrylic-on-wood pieces by Jackson Tupper. More than 50 artists are represented.

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• Courtesy Of Shelter Cultivation Project
• "Your Flower, My Flower, Our Flower" by Sabrina Bosco

The gallery space also houses Kestrel Coffee Roasters and tables for caffeinated laptoppers. Its south wall is pleasantly crammed with artworks hung in close proximity. Along with a handful of pieces on adjacent walls, they collectively exude a countercultural energy and aesthetic.

Though the exhibit has no theme, the almost universal joie de vivre of the artworks rejects a "this-year-sucked" narrative. The egalitarianism is refreshing, too; the works of emerging artists hang companionably with those of highly successful ones. It's hard not to feel that the artworks themselves have formed a community.

Dumont, art director of Burton Snowboards and a member-teacher at Iskra Print Collective, is well connected in the design world. He's also a genial guy, so reaching out to artists he admires wasn't difficult, even during a pandemic.

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• Courtesy Of Shelter Cultivation Project
• "Vessel 4" by Shawn Dumont

The genesis of the Shelter Cultivation Project preceded COVID-19. "Two years ago, I started doing some core-value work, figuring out who I am," Dumont explained during a gallery visit. He identified four overarching values in his life: creating and making; exploration; being an "outsider" (a rudiment of skateboarder culture); and community building.

"Then the pandemic hit," he said. And his infant son had open-heart surgery (he's fine now). But the challenges of 2020 only spurred Dumont to put his values in action. He started contacting artists and used his federal stimulus check, he said, to buy work from them. The seed of what would become the Shelter Cultivation Project began to germinate.

And then, Dumont said, "I had this idea to build a geodesic dome and set it on fire." Along with woodworker Seamus Hannan and R. Elliott Katz, operations and facilities director of Burlington's Generator maker space, he did just that. An image of the flaming dome, placed on a frozen inlet of Lake Champlain, became the nascent project's logo.

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• Courtesy Of Shelter Cultivation Project
• "Netflix" by Toshifumi Kiuchi

Dumont immersed himself in creating the exhibit, obsessing over everything "down to the packaging," he said. On a rack in the exhibit's shop hang bespoke sweatshirts and tees with small tags made by hand. On a nearby shelf sit dome-shaped candles. He invited artist Phoebe Lo to paint a mural on one wall of the diminutive space.

Then there are all those artists and makers Dumont enlisted, their connections expanding and circling back around. Artists from elsewhere who traveled to Burlington, slept on Dumont's couch, played with his kids. Artists who screen-printed into the wee hours in the Iskra studio. Artists whom Dumont had never met before and who are now his fast friends. The Shelter Cultivation Project became much more than an exhibit.

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• Courtesy Of Shelter Cultivation Project
• "Puppet" by Ellen Voorheis

Organizing the project was no small feat, but that Dumont accomplished it is not surprising. Growing up in New York and New Hampshire, he embraced both urban stimulation and what he called a "hippie" ethic. His father operated a gallery featuring Native American art, and, Dumont said, "I grew up going to reservations with him."

His aptitude for bridging cultures is evident not only in the Shelter Cultivation Project as a whole but also in Dumont's own elegant screen prints. In "Vessel 4," for example, the shape and patterning of the vase seem distinctly Native, but a closer look reveals happy suns, smiley faces and butterflies with giant eyes.

"I sort of pull it all in, this human language," Dumont said, "symbols from a lot of cultures."

Musing on the future, he said he'd like to set up shows like this one in other locations — "cultivating shelter" in new communities and connecting new circles of friends. "I love making big things happen," he said.