Aloha … from BethC50 years of mountain sketches in Gifford Gallery
After 25 years caring for area residents,
Dr. William Minsinger retires from Gifford
RANDOLPH, Aug. 26, 2009 – There are many sides to Paul Calter. 
The Randolph resident taught mathematics at Vermont Technical College, and elsewhere, for more than 20 years. He’s penned more than 10 mathematics textbooks, printed in multiple editions at major publishers. And his diverse collection of artwork – paintings and sculptures – is commissioned and exhibited around the region.
A collection he calls “Mountain Sketchbook: 50 years of painting in high places” is currently on display at Gifford Medical Center’s art gallery.
“This is a fairly important show for me, because it’s so personal for me. It’s almost autobiographical,” says Calter.
Through a scrapbook filled with works dating back to the 1950s and framed pieces lining the gallery’s butter-colored walls, Calter is exhibiting not only his passion for art, but his passion for traversing high places.
Calter started taking “mountain trips” in his teens with the Boy Scouts and then continued in college.
“I started serious climbing in college at Cooper Union. It’s half an engineering school, which I went to, and half an art school. Out on hiking trips I came into contact with lots of artists and this may have been how my interest started,” Calter says.
He was part of the hiking club in college. He learned technical rock climbing and winter mountaineering, and – even though the school’s artists weren’t even doing it – he started carrying his sketch materials with him on his outings.
“With all the other distractions on a climb: fatigue, heat, cold, hunger, looking for water and the route, it takes a fair amount of drive to set up your stuff and paint,” says Calter.
But he did it. First on his own and then later while hiking with his son Michael or as Vermont Technical College Outing Club advisor, he pulled paper, pencil, paints and sometimes ink from a small zippered bag and captured what he saw before him.
Calter moved to Randolph from New York City in 1968 for his teaching post at Vermont Technical College.
Captivated by Vermont’s mountainous landscape, Calter says, “That’s when I really started working in earnest.”
His show at Gifford includes some of his earliest paintings of mountains. They date to the 1950s and span decades, many are small works, and the majority were done in the field. Some were good enough to frame and hang, says Calter. Others include studio paintings derived from a rough field sketch.
The autobiographical show, on display until Sept. 16, free and open to the public, is just a snippet of what Calter has offered the world of art.
In Gifford’s own Courtyard Garden is a stone fountain – just one of Calter’s many geometric works. Vermont Technical College has other Calter sculptures with celestial themes. And at the Tunbridge Library Art Space are both sculptures and a White River sketchbook of Calter’s on display beginning Friday, when an opening reception will be held from 7-9 p.m. That show remains up until Oct. 24.
Visit Calter’s works at Gifford, the Tunbridge Library or online at www.sover.net/~pcalter/. Gifford’s gallery is just inside the main entrance at the medical center at 44 S. Main St. in Randolph.
The photo of Paul Calter above is from his Web site.