Walking Project: Animal, Vegetable, Mineral

OPEN TO THE PUBLIC | Artist Judith Belzer '78's exhibition Walking Project: Animal, Vegetable, Mineral is on view at the Robert Frost Stone House Museum.

California-based artist Judith Belzer (who started her undergraduate career at Bennington) walks to collect and curate found objects, both natural and human-made, which she lays out on tabletop displays. “I think of my collection as a sort of antidote to our throwaway culture and to nature’s own tendency to shed things (like leaves, seeds etc.)," she says. “Objects thought to be worthless can regain a certain value when put in a new context, seen in a new relationship with another thing.” These collections find the poetry that exists between combinations of objects and “start small yet revelatory conversations.” An exhibit of Belzer’s objects, Walking Project: Animal, Vegetable, Mineral, will be installed in Summer 2026 at the Robert Frost Stone House Museum and run through October. 

Robert Frost was an avid walker and often took what he called “Botanizing Walks” alone or with family and friends. His friend Reginald Cook recalled that Frost “walked in the woods every day that he could … It had been a lifelong habit, this walking. Like Wordsworth, he walked and looked, he listened. He knew the bird-calls, the names of the flowers, their patterns of blooming. The life cycles of trees were always of close interest to him. Mushroom, mold, or fungus—everything caught his eye.” One of these walks was the origin of perhaps his best known poem, “The Road Not Taken.”

Through the exhibition and programs, participants and viewers will experience the power of nature and observation to gain a deeper understanding of their own human experiences, the experiences of others, and tap into their creative potential. Frost wrote in his notebook, “Nature is always hinting at us. It hints over and over again. And suddenly we take the hint.” 

This exhibition and related programming are made possible through support from The Fund for North Bennington and the Endeavor Fund.