Hope Sullivan had been on the job as executive director at Johnson’s Vermont Studio Center for just two months when the then-39-year-old arts campus was hit by the heavy rains of July 2023. The center — a scenic cluster of artist studios and collaborative spaces neighboring the Gihon River — endured some of the most severe flooding in the state. Its Wolf Kahn Studio Building was completely destroyed. “The scale of the devastation — the completely surreal nature of what was happening, watching the water as it was rising — was all just really a lot to take in,” Sullivan said. Trevor Corp’s flooded studio in 2023 Credit: Courtesy Three years later, Vermont Studio Center has received Federal Emergency Management Agency flood-recovery funding to replace the Wolf Kahn building. U.S. Sen. Peter Welch’s (D-Vt.) office announced earlier this month that the center would get nearly $1.9 million, part of a $4 million FEMA package that will also be divided among the Vermont Agency of Transportation and the Washington Electric Cooperative. According to a press release from Welch, the funding will “support recovery, restoration, and mitigation efforts following the floods of July 2023 and 2024.” After assessing the damage to the Wolf Kahn building, Vermont Studio Center executives realized it wouldn’t be worth investing in reconstruction, since the riverside location remains disaster-prone. According to Trevor Corp, senior director of campus operations and one of the artists who worked in the barn, floodwaters rose nearly as high as the building’s door handles. “It’s a beautiful river, and it’s kind of an idyllic site,” Corp said, “but it also comes with a price.” The funds from FEMA (along with roughly $2.3 million that the center independently fundraised) will go instead toward a new studio and space for artists: the Bradley Studio Complex, to be located outside the town’s floodplain. The complex will expand on Bradley House, a preexisting building owned by the center that’s across the street from the Wolf Kahn site. The new space will contain 10 studios and other amenities for resident artists and writers. According to Sullivan, the FEMA award means the project is now fully funded. It’s slated for completion in April 2028. Beyond the aim to foster community and creativity for residents, Vermont Studio Center is focused on sustainability goals for the new building. Corp said the center has partnered with contractors to optimize energy efficiency in the new studios, and Sullivan hopes the complex’s more secure location will help it weather climate change and future potential environmental disasters. “We’re going for resiliency here,” Corp said. Despite the challenges the center has experienced in recent years, Sullivan said there’s a silver lining to the flooding: “I would not have in any way understood the scale or the impact of Vermont Studio Center if not for the flood.” The center has more than 22,000 alumni from over 100 countries, Sullivan said. Hundreds of people donated money when the destruction occurred in 2023; dozens more from the local community showed up to “grab soggy, destroyed furniture and books and artwork and just start to try and deal with the mess we had on hand,” she added. Corp said that when the Bradley Studio Complex is complete, he hopes to include a tribute to the residents who spent time in the Wolf Kahn space. He explained that when residents complete their session at the center, they’re encouraged to leave their mark by signing their name on the doorjamb to their studio. Corp managed to salvage all the signed doorjambs from the Wolf Kahn studios and has a vision for displaying them to “bring some of that past energy into the new space.” ➆ The post Vermont Studio Center Gets FEMA Flood-Recovery Funding appeared first on Seven Days. ...read more read less