Rediscovered: The Rose Window

Arts Integration Initiative may help to reconstruct it for your viewing pleasure.

It’s a rose window from medieval times. It lives not in some quaint European village but rather in the charming New England town of Hanover, New Hampshire. It is sixty-five unassembled (for now) pieces of limestone, each weighing between 40 and 60 pounds. Of that Elizabeth (Beth) Rice Mattison, Andrew W. Mellon Curator of Academic Programming and Curator of European Art at the Hood Museum, is certain—she has undauntedly weighed each fragment herself.

Beth, and Nicola (Nick) Camerlenghi, Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Art History at Dartmouth, recently received a grant from the Arts Integration Initiative, announced by the Hopkins Center for the Arts and Dartmouth’s Office of the Provost, to reclaim the window from the Hood Museum’s storage and the semi-obscurity in which it has lived for decades. The Arts Integration Initiative aims “ . . . to support arts-centric research, incubate interdisciplinary projects and advance faculty-student mentorship.” The Dartmouth Rose Window project “combines geological, engineering and art historical analyses with digital modeling” to further understand the work and hopefully lead to its eventual reconstruction and exhibition on campus.

The window was gifted to Dartmouth College in 1977, even before the existence of the Hood Museum, by Ray Winfield Smith (Class of 1918) and his wife Bonnie Dora Jones Smith. According to Beth Mattison, it was once acquired and owned by William Randolph Hearst during his building of Hearst Castle; if ever it had been under consideration for incorporation into the project, Hearst must have decided against it. At some point he sold it back to the Brummer Gallery, the original source of his purchase.

Bonnie Dora Jones Smith in her garden in earlier times with the rose window.

Nick Camerlenghi’s acquaintance with the window was somewhat serendipitous. He was hired as a professor of art history at Dartmouth in 2013 with a speciality in medieval architecture. He heard of the rose window, but other professional duties claimed his time for the next few years. Finally, he arranged to see it in its storage location. His reaction at first sight? “A kind of awe. Four massive pallets, excitement, disbelief. Like Christmas.”

Since then he and Beth have taught a course to Dartmouth students about the window, using the fragments themselves as primary material. After research including a stint in Rome, Nick estimates that the work is from the late 14th or early 15th century, likely from a provincial source in southern Italy. A search for photos of the window in situ has not produced results.

What is next for the rose window is a process of further research and reflection, with an eye toward its reconstruction (which, by the way, has never involved mortar of any kind; that, and its weight, presents a challenge.) A suggestion has been floated that Carpenter Hall, home to the art history department, (see below) might be an ideal location.

Simulated illustration of the rose window installed in Carpenter Hall, Dartmouth College. Photo courtesy of Nick Camerlenghi

For further information about Dartmouth’s Arts Integration Initiative and to read about other awardees, click here.

(Photos, top and middle, courtesy of the Hood Museum and Hopkins Center for the Arts.)

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And on a different note from our friends at UVB: Upper Valley Baroque performs Bach’s Easter Oratorio & Magnificat

Come experience UVB’s professional chamber orchestra and chorus led by Filippo Ciabatti, Artistic Director.

Fri, March 13 (6pm) Rutland VT – Grace Church, 8 Court St; Sat, March 14 (3pm) Randolph VT – Chandler Center for the Arts, 71 N. Main St; Sun, March 15 (3pm) Lebanon NH – Lebanon Opera House, 51 N. Park St

Tickets: www.UpperValleyBaroque.org/concerts or call 203-240-1164

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Thank you! You’re reading Artful, a blog about arts and culture in the Upper Valley, and I hope you’ll subscribe (still free) and then share this post with your friends and on your social media. We now have over 3200 subscribers.

The Hopkins Center for the Arts helps support Artful and joins Artful in celebrating those who love, make and share the art in our community. View the Hop’s 25/26 season.

And in case you are wondering . . . Susan B. Apel shuttered a lifelong career as a law professor to continue an interest (since kindergarten) in writing. Her freelance business, The Next Word, includes literary and feature writing; her work has appeared in a variety of lit mags and other publications including Art New England, The Woven Tale Press, The Arts Fuse, Next Avenue, and Persimmon Tree. She connects with her neighbors through Artful, her blog about arts and culture in the Upper Valley. She’s in love with the written word.

Lebanon Fire Department Returns to Old Location, New Building

And changes on Mechanic Street . . .

And just like that . . .

After months of watching the construction site as the new Lebanon NH Fire Station arose from the concrete, it’s finally there! According to the City of Lebanon:

“The Fire Department will return to the Central Fire Station at 12 South Park Street, with move completion as of March 3, 2026. The Central Fire Station Project progressed within the overall timeline and within the total approved budget.”

I like the snazzy red doors.

Meanwhile, Stateline Sports opened last month at its new location at 179 Mechanic Street. And the original bricks-and-mortar location of Phnom Penh Sandwich Station has given way to the eventual and much-discussed construction of a new roundabout at downtown Lebanon’s most confusing intersection. Owner Sarin Tin plans to reopen the Lebanon restaurant this summer at a new spot, 129 Mechanic Street. You can still get your bánh mis and other dishes at his White River Junction location, which remains open.

At 160 Mechanic Street, you’ll find the Lebanon Seasonal Shelter. Recently, the Upper Valley Haven featured a story about Dan Toohey, (here) whose day as the shelter’s cook begins at 7:30 am. A short video will take you inside the kitchen with Dan as he prepares dinner each day. Crowd favorites? “Barbecued ribs are always a hit. Pulled pork is always a hit. Chicken pot pie.”

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Thank you! You’re reading Artful, a blog about arts and culture in the Upper Valley, and I hope you’ll subscribe (still free) and then share this post with your friends and on your social media. We now have over 3200 subscribers.

And in case you are wondering . . . Susan B. Apel shuttered a lifelong career as a law professor to continue an interest (since kindergarten) in writing. Her freelance business, The Next Word, includes literary and feature writing; her work has appeared in a variety of lit mags and other publications including Art New England, The Woven Tale Press, The Arts Fuse, Next Avenue, and Persimmon Tree. She connects with her neighbors through Artful, her blog about arts and culture in the Upper Valley. She’s in love with the written word.

“Meze on Main Street: A Love Story” Brings Tuckerbox to the Big Screen on March 5 at WRIF

White River Indie Festival (WRIF), March 1 through 8

Meze on Main Street: A Love Story is exactly that. It’s the story of how Jackie and Vural Oktay, proprietors of Tuckerbox, a Turkish restaurant that wraps around a corner of downtown White River Junction, met when they were young food service workers at the Mount Washington Hotel. It’s about their families, in places as disparate as small town Vermont and the cities of Turkey. And it’s about building a business and the calamity that threatened to sink it, and the shared tenacity of the Tuckerbox team and the Upper Valley community that ultimately saved the day.

Jim Zien took a course in documentary filmmaking from JAM’s (Junction Arts and Media) executive director Samantha Davidson Green. The film Meze on Main Street is his “first (and only) so far.” Why Tuckerbox? He and his wife, Helena Binder, had been enthusiastic patrons of the restaurant for some time. He explained:

“In addition, I had been taking my now 98 year-old aunt to lunch there weekly after moving her from New York City into the Village at WRJ, so we were friendly with Vural and Jackie as well as many of the day and evening servers. I'd always wondered about the origins of the restaurant and Little Istanbul [the Turkish emporium across the street from Tuckerbox, also owned by the Oktays], so when Samantha asked the course participants to do some trial filming for a prospective documentary I approached Vural and Jackie about the possibility and they graciously assented.”

Samantha Davidson Green, who edited Meze, described the film’s origin: ““Produce Your Personal Documentary” was the course I offered in 2022 through JAM in partnership with Osher Institute for Lifelong Learning at Dartmouth. I expected 3-5 minute films to come out of the 8-week soup-to-nuts workshop, but Jim’s curiosity about Tuckerbox led to a four-year journey.” Proximity of JAM offices to Tuckerbox and its newer, next-door counterpart, Cappadocia Cafe, was a good thing. “This familiarity and Jim’s persistence helped open layers to the story we never could have anticipated, reaching into the Oktays’ family histories and filming through the disastrous flood that struck our building, impacting us all together.”

“This project exemplifies the kind of hyper-local, relationship-based storytelling that we aim to catalyze at JAM.”—Executive Director Samantha Davidson Green

Full disclosure: Tuckerbox is my favorite Upper Valley lunch destination. And occasionally my breakfast spot, and sometimes the place for dinner. It’s my second living room, my unofficial office where I meet and talk with local artists for this very blog and other writings, a table where I hold hands with my husband and watch the trains arrive and depart. Many of your friends and neighbors who appear in the film feel the same. One customer speaking to the camera described Tuckerbox as “the hub of White River Junction.”

And fuller disclosure—just before I sat down to preview the film, I was gobsmacked to learn that I (and my husband) were in it! That final scene? It’s me congratulating Vural and Jackie on opening day at Cappadocia, Jackie kindly and carefully sliding a dessert into a paper bag for us to carry home.

Meze on Main Street: A Love Story will be screened at the Briggs Opera House in White River Junction at 12:00 noon on Thursday, March 5, 2026. Afterwards, you can purchase a separate ticket to meet and greet the film’s creative team and feed your body and soul at a luncheon at the Cappadocia Cafe just below. Tickets and further information available here.

Meze on Main Street is, of course, but one in a variety of offerings—films, live events, mix-and-mingles—at the White River Indie Festival, running from March 1 through March 8, 2026. Venues are primarily throughout downtown White River Junction. Here’s a peek at the schedule. Passes and individual tickets are available.

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Thank you! You’re reading Artful, a blog about arts and culture in the Upper Valley, and I hope you’ll subscribe (still free) and then share this post with your friends and on your social media. We now have over 3200 subscribers.

And in case you are wondering . . . Susan B. Apel shuttered a lifelong career as a law professor to continue an interest (since kindergarten) in writing. Her freelance business, The Next Word, includes literary and feature writing; her work has appeared in a variety of lit mags and other publications including Art New England, The Woven Tale Press, The Arts Fuse, Next Avenue, and Persimmon Tree. She connects with her neighbors through Artful, her blog about arts and culture in the Upper Valley. She’s in love with the written word.

Curling, With Cheddar: The Video

“A curling stone is called ‘the cheese.’” —Mateo Kehler, Jasper Hill Farm

Last week’s post on Artful, Curling With Cheddar (here), received almost 6,000 views, so I am assuming the idea caught your fancy. And now, we have the video of yesterday’s event (the fourth annual) in Greensboro, VT. Click here, or on the link below, or copy and paste.

https://www.wcax.com/2026/02/22/jasper-hill-farm-uses-cheese-wheels-curling-stones-fourth-annual-tournament/

Happy Sunday.

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Thank you! You’re reading Artful, a blog about arts and culture in the Upper Valley, and I hope you’ll subscribe (still free) and then share this post with your friends and on your social media. We now have over 3200 subscribers.

And in case you are wondering . . . Susan B. Apel shuttered a lifelong career as a law professor to continue an interest (since kindergarten) in writing. Her freelance business, The Next Word, includes literary and feature writing; her work has appeared in a variety of lit mags and other publications including Art New England, The Woven Tale Press, The Arts Fuse, Next Avenue, and Persimmon Tree. She connects with her neighbors through Artful, her blog about arts and culture in the Upper Valley. She’s in love with the written word.

Anne Frank’s Diary, King’s Letters from Birmingham Jail in Performance in Quechee VT

Sunday, February 22 at 12:00 noon

It’s Black History Month. News of the passing of the Rev. Jesse Jackson—a firebrand of my youth and possibly yours—is filling screens today. The recent experience in Minneapolis and elsewhere finds Anne Frank and her words cropping up in current conversation, with people choosing sides on the appropriateness of the comparison. It seems a particularly apt moment (or more accurately, year) to quote, as some protestors have been wont to do on protest signs, some of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s famous words: “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

A group new to me, the Quechee Club’s DEI Council in Quechee, Vermont, is staging a unique theatrical presentation of the writings of Anne Frank and Martin Luther King this coming Sunday. Here is their announcement:

Letters from Anne & Martin draws profound parallels between the words of Anne Frank and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

EVENT DATE: Sunday, February 22, 12 noon

QUECHEE, VT– The Quechee Club’s DEI Council will host an event, Letters from Anne & Martin, Sunday, February 22 from 12 to 1 pm at the Quechee Club in the downstairs, Main Dining Room.

The free, live powerful two-person performance draws profound parallels between the words of Anne Frank and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. This performance from the Anne Frank Center combines excerpts from Anne’s diary with key moments from Dr. King’s Letters from Birmingham Jail highlighting their shared themes of hope, resistance, and the fight for justice.

WHEN: Sunday, February 22nd at 12:00 noon – 1:00 p.m.

WHERE: The Quechee Club, 3268 Quechee Main St, Quechee, VT 05059. The event will also be offered via Zoom. To register, contact Marc Wilkins at marc.wilkins@quecheeclub.com. You will need to specify whether you will attend in person (preferred) or via Zoom.

WHAT: Through the dialogue of these two remarkable figures, you are offered a unique lens on the struggles for human rights, both during World War II and the Civil Rights Movement. The show serves as a bridge between history and the present, highlighting how lessons of the past are deeply connected to the challenges we face today. By weaving Anne’s reflections on the horrors of war with Dr. King’s calls for nonviolent action, the show is a powerful tool for understanding both the Holocaust and the Civil Rights Movement. The audience is empowered to see the relevance of these movements in today’s world, encouraging them to take a stand against prejudice, bigotry, antisemitism, racism and discrimination, to promote equality, and work towards a more just and inclusive future. The performance is 1-hour.

The Quechee Club’s DEI Council is part of the Quechee Lakes Landowners Association and committed to educating and bringing awareness to the community on matters of diversity, equity and inclusion. Founded in July 2020 the Council strives to make the QLLA community a more welcome and safer place for members, guests, and employees and provides frequent educational events and lectures.

The performance is free of charge.

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Thank you! You’re reading Artful, a blog about arts and culture in the Upper Valley, and I hope you’ll subscribe (still free) and then share this post with your friends and on your social media. We now have over 3200 subscribers.

And in case you are wondering . . . Susan B. Apel shuttered a lifelong career as a law professor to continue an interest (since kindergarten) in writing. Her freelance business, The Next Word, includes literary and feature writing; her work has appeared in a variety of lit mags and other publications including Art New England, The Woven Tale Press, The Arts Fuse, Next Avenue, and Persimmon Tree. She connects with her neighbors through Artful, her blog about arts and culture in the Upper Valley. She’s in love with the written word.