Craftsbury Common church on the green
— — a white steeple at the head of a long green.
Not only on a wall.
“The United Church of Craftsbury sits at the north end of the common, a long rectangle of mowed grass lined with maples and clapboard houses. The building is Greek Revival, white, with a square tower and a thin spire. Sterling College is half a mile down the road. There is no traffic light in the village. In summer the green is mown weekly; in winter the snow holds the church's shadow across it well into the afternoon. from the studio
Craftsbury Common church on the green, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Craftsbury Common is one of four villages within the town of Craftsbury, in Orleans County, Vermont, sitting at about 1,200 feet in the Northeast Kingdom. The village green is rectangular, hedged by clapboard houses and the white-painted United Church of Craftsbury. The Craftsbury Common Historic District was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1976, recognising one of the most intact New England commons still in regular civic use. Sterling College, founded in 1958, sits a short walk from the green.
The church is wood, not stone, and that is part of the point: a Greek Revival meeting house of the 1820s, raised on a granite footing, with a square belfry and a tall, narrow spire. The clapboards are repainted white every several years by the congregation and a rotation of local trades. The doors face south down the length of the common, so the morning light walks the facade rather than striking it head-on, which is why the building photographs softly in any season.
The village changes character with the calendar more than with the weather. In late September the surrounding maples turn early, ten to fourteen days ahead of the Champlain Valley, because of the elevation. In January the green disappears under packed snow and the church spire reads against a low grey sky. The Craftsbury Outdoor Center, a few miles north, draws Nordic skiers from across New England, and the village quietens after dinner; no streetlight on the common interrupts the dark.