Grass Roots Art and Community Effort (GRACE) had its beginnings in 1975 at the St. Johnsbury Convalescent Center located in Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom. Don Sunseri, an artist newly transplanted in Vermont and needing work, found a job doing kitchen maintenance at the nursing home. He was drawn to the residents and began to feel these elders could be a source of learning and perhaps inspiration for himself. Don engaged help from the Vermont Council on the Arts and secured C.E.T.A. funding for two years of art workshops. He provided materials, encouragement and a supportive environment, using teaching skills and techniques of traditional art classes.
The workshops were received enthusiastically but the “lessons” were for the most part ignored. People would start to work and quickly be off on their own, forgetting the “how’s” and just doing their own thing. Seeing this impulse in the residents, Don responded by dropping the “lessons,” stepping back and letting the residents explore on their own. As a result, nursing home residents produced a stream of beautiful, often autobiographical art works. The art work was later organized into exhibits, slide lectures and publications. Since that time, hundreds of exhibits have traveled to galleries, museums and art centers, regionally, nationally and internationally.For many years, GRACE was a project of Catamount Arts in St. Johnsbury, Vermont. In 1990, the transition was made from project to organization when GRACE received its 501(c)(3) non-profit status. Additional staff joined GRACE as workshop facilitators and administrators helping to ensure that transition and growth were successful. Today, GRACE has blossomed into a small, non-profit organization which now has a staff of six and runs more than 500 workshops annually. GRACE has been recognized and supported as an important and original community arts program by the Vermont Arts Council, the National Endowment for the Arts, the New England Foundation for the Arts, the Vermont Community Foundation and many private foundations. Smithsonian (1992) CNN Across America (1993), Vermont Life (1995), Vermont ETV (1996) traveled to Vermont to highlight the GRACE program and the work of individual GRACE artists.