“What art does — maybe what it does most completely — is tell us, make us feel that what we think we know, we don’t. There are whole worlds around us that we’ve never glimpsed.” Greil Marcus — Thursday July 9th — —

The idea is to die young as late as possible. — Ashley Montagu — Thursday July 9th — —

I love listening. It is one of the only spaces where you can be still and moved at the same time. — Nayyirah Waheed — Thursday July 9th — —

The Collective Quarterly 02

For the latest edition of inspirational The Collective Quarterly, it has placed its exploratory gaze on the Mad River valley – officially known as the Winooski River – in Vermont, USA, visiting towns like Warren, Waitsfield, Moretown, Fayston, and Duxbury; an area famous for its architectural experimentations. There are more architects per capita in Warren than anywhere else in the United States. Throughout the ’60s and ’70s, these highly creative designers created experimental constructions on Prickly Mountain, heralding the arrival of the design/build movement, which was insightfully caught in the magazine’s photographic story on the subject. Other chapters in the issue focus on; extreme sports like kayaking, big-air huck fests in sleds, and cliff-jumping at near-suicidal heights; a man who builds houses in the trees for the disabled youth; a woman who forges artful kitchen knives out of old horse-hoof rasps from her father’s blacksmith operation; and a socialist German refugee whose politically charged puppet shows in the fields of the Northeast Kingdom draw thousands. We love this new issue of extraordinary armchair travel by The Collective Quarterly.

‘Flatlanders’ as true Vermonters call those from away, are understandably enchanted by the place’s virgin beauty. They arrive in droves each fall to watch the leaves turn from emerald green to the hues of a flickering flame. They come for the quaintness quotient: the maple syrup, the fresh-pressed apple cider, and the corn mazes.

At the beginning of this year we discovered the inspirational The Collective Quarterly, which has as its motivation for every issue to spotlight a single geographic location, focusing on the artisans, music, food, and natural wonders that make it special. When we first found it, the magazine had just released its second issue, which had its focus on the Absaroka region in Montana, after debuting with its issue on Marfa, which is no followed-up by the dissection of the beautiful Mad River region in Vermont. Next to every magazine, The Collective Quarterly also aims to partner with the companies featured in the magazines to produce a handful of limited edition, co-branded goods, which they exclusively offer in their shop.

For the Mad River issue the ‘Architect’s Case‘ was produced in a collaboration with designer Rob Maddox.

Everywhere we went, we kept bumping into the idea of failure. It was not, however, something to be feared. Instead, the mindset was as Irish playwright Samuel Beckett once said: ‘Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.’

We love the inspirational work of The Collective Quarterly!

For more information and to order The Collective Quarterly 02 and back issues online see here.