by Carol Vogel

A renovated mill in Newport, N.H. — a tiny town (population 6,200) along the banks of the Sugar River in the southwestern part of the state — is not a place where you would necessarily expect to see cutting-edge art. But from next Friday through Nov. 7, it will be the site of “H2O Film on Water,” a show of videos, paintings, photographs and site-based installations by about 100 artists.

Through the eyes of some well-known figures like Doug Starn and his twin, Mike, and Shuli Sade, as well as emerging artists like Amy Globus, Ethan Murrow and Anne Lindberg, the exhibition will explore water and the effects of changes in the global climate.

Organized by Cynthia Reeves, owner of the Cynthia-Reeves gallery in Manhattan and creative director of the Great River Arts Institute, a nonprofit arts center in Bellows Falls, Vt., the show will spill over to other spaces along the Connecticut River (whose tributaries include the Sugar River): Great River Arts; the Brattleboro Museum in Vermont; and Spheris Gallery in Hanover, N.H.

“I wanted to draw attention to the Connecticut River,” Ms. Reeves said, “to draw people up the valley.”

The area includes 18,000 square feet in the Newport Mill, a 1906 turreted red-brick building that will be making its debut as an exhibition space.

In 1980 when its owner, William B. Ruger Jr., bought the mill, he rented it to very different businesses. Over the years a light bulb maker set up an operation there; so did a shoe manufacturer and a warehouse distributor. But two years ago when Mr. Ruger saw such industries on the decline, he renovated the building in hopes of giving it a new life.

“I would love it to be a permanent art space with galleries, art storage, exhibitions,” Mr. Ruger, who retired in 2006 as chairman of the firearms company his father founded, said in a telephone interview. “Sure it’s out of the way, but it would be breaking new ground.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/31/arts/design/31vogel.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&ref=design