Of all the ways we encounter or discover art in our lives, there’s one surefire source for new and exciting media: someone who really, really gives a damn.
Whether they’re organizing an underground noise-rock festival or a nonfiction comics convention, these often-unsung heroes work from a place of deep passion. Their efforts form the bedrock of artistically vital communities.
One such individual is Jamie Mohr, executive director of Epsilon Spires in Brattleboro. The southern Vermont town of 12,000 packs an artistic punch for its size, and one of its brightest gems is Epsilon, a 19th-century Victorian church turned into an arts venue. Launched in 2019, it’s a repository of all things weird, fringe, experimental and just downright cool.
Mohr, 46, is on a mission to explore the relationships among art, science, equality and sustainability, which she does by programming Epsilon with rare art installations, film screenings, musical performances, culinary experiences, and educational workshops and panels.
Now, like many arts organizations across Vermont, Epsilon faces an uncertain future. Federal funding cuts and unpredictable ticket sales make Mohr’s programming risks even riskier, with the venue’s fate in the balance. She hopes an “emergency fundraiser” can carry Epsilon through its lean season.
A multidisciplinary artist and documentary filmmaker, Mohr covers a broad palette with her programming credentials. From Hudson, N.Y., she attended the School for International Training in Brattleboro, earned a master’s degree in documentary studies from the New School in New York City, and has been organizing arts events and concerts for years.
None of which got her the job at Epsilon. That would be the sheep.
In 2018, “I’d moved back to Vermont after a few years in New York,” Mohr told me on a Zoom call from her office at Epsilon, her long brown hair tucked into a baseball cap. “I saw an ad on Craigslist to be a shepherd for these feral sheep and thought, Well, that might be interesting!”
The sheep, a rare breed called Soay from Scotland’s St. Kilda archipelago, belonged to Bob Johnson, a Brattleboro scientist who founded Omega Optical, a maker of lenses for NASA. Johnson had a plan to reinvigorate the town’s arts scene by purchasing downtown churches and turning them into performing arts venues. The Stone Church, which he’d bought in the 1970s, launched as a venue in 2016.
In addition to his interest in the arts, the entrepreneur had a passion for wild Scottish sheep, and he needed someone to accompany him and some sheep on the 18-hour drive to tend another flock in Nova Scotia.
“I had just finished a film, and I was supposed to head to Los Angeles to show it,” Mohr recalled. “But Bob said, ‘Hey, if you want this job, this trip is the job interview.'”
She couldn’t pass up the sheer weirdness of the offer, so she and Johnson made the trek with the sheep in tow. During the few weeks they spent together, Mohr told him about her background in the arts. Johnson explained that he still wanted to “activate” a second Victorian church he had purchased in town.
“There’s a lesson in that, I think,” Mohr said. “Life is about risk-taking. I said yes to the feral sheep, and by the time we were back in Vermont, I was taking on the project at Epsilon.”
It was anything but an easy start for the new nonprofit arts organization. Unlike Stone Church, the former First Baptist Church at 190 Main Street was in pretty dire condition. Johnson, Mohr and the new board set about renovating the property — including the 425-person-capacity sanctuary space, a lavish room with bloodred carpets and a historic, massive pipe organ that the Estey Organ Company installed in 1906.
“It was pretty rough at first,” Mohr said. “The second floor had wind blowing through it. There were [Alcoholics Anonymous] meetings still happening, and all these random people seemed to have keys and would just show up. There was a squatter vibe going on there for a bit.”
Six months after Epsilon opened, the pandemic struck, temporarily dashing Mohr’s hopes of connecting the community to its new arts space. Desperate to get started, she projected films in the parking lot from a cherry-red pickup truck. While it wasn’t an ideal way to introduce Epsilon to the town, it showed the organization’s dedication to the arts right off the bat.
“We set out to offer something you couldn’t find elsewhere, even in a community as artistic as Brattleboro,” Mohr said.
What sets Epsilon apart is Mohr’s visionary and niche programming. She mixes film, music and food in wildly creative combinations. Recent events include a showing of a documentary about The Tibetan Book of the Dead, narrated by the late, great Canadian singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen, which featured a postshow discussion and a three-course Himalayan meal. In December — on Friday the 13th, no less — Mohr showed The Bloody Lady, an animated Slovakian film about alleged serial-killer countess Elizabeth Báthory, and paired it with a live ambient soundtrack from electronic artist NEONACH.
There have been a few misses and moments of overreach, Mohr admitted. She pitched screening the infamous Bad Lieutenant movies alongside a bratwurst dinner as an event called “The Wurst Lieutenant.” The board passed. Then there was “Belladonna of Sade,” which paired the 1973 film Belladonna of Sadness with a group of experimental musicians Mohr booked to play Sade covers.
“Not a soul came,” Mohr recalled with a rueful laugh. “It was me, the band and some Sade.”
Therein lies the crux of her conundrum with Epsilon.
How do we stick with our ethos but be popular enough to make money? Jamie Mohr
“The tricky thing is, how do we stick with our ethos but be popular enough to make money and stay in operation?” Mohr asked. “We want to keep pushing the envelope, but also: How do we have these events and draw more people in to become converts?”
Mohr will have to answer that question soon. “Many funders are ending their programs right now, and grant money is drying up,” she said. That shortfall has combined with a series of unexpected building maintenance bills to put the organization under strain.
To help offset those costs, Mohr launched her emergency fundraiser in February, hoping to get the venue through the winter and into the summer, when ticket sales traditionally pick up. She also spearheaded a membership drive, which gives patrons event discounts and access to free Q&A sessions with filmmakers and musicians.
“Creative problem solving is a survival mechanism for an arts org,” Mohr pointed out. “You have to innovate to survive, and that has very much been our story.”
As the artist Henri Matisse said, “Creativity takes courage.” Given the challenges Epsilon is facing, it’s reassuring to know Mohr has the latter in spades.
This article appears in Feb 26 – Mar 4, 2025.
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