Brandon may not have an official movie theatre like the Marquis in Middlebury or the bygone Studio Cinema Twin in Rutland, but since last year, it’s had a great new spot to watch movies with friends: the Film Club at Aleshire Gallery, held on the first Sunday of each month. This weekend, the club celebrates its one-year anniversary with a spooky double feature, just right for the Halloween season.
“I was inspired to start the series a year ago mostly because there are no movie theatres anymore in between Middlebury and Bennington, which leaves quite a vacuum,” says gallery owner Ben Aleshire.
Admittedly, subscription services like Netflix and Amazon Prime have made it easy to watch movies at home these days. But Aleshire had an eye towards building a greater feeling of community around the gallery, where he also exhibits contemporary art and hosts classes.
“These days, it's a bit of a quixotic endeavor,” he said. “But I think watching a film on a 12-inch laptop on your belly by yourself in your bedroom with crappy speakers doesn't have to be the only way.”
For a $10 donation, visitors can grab a snack or drink and settle in for a movie with others from their community. Alreshire says he has always enjoyed semi-underground bookstores and movie theaters, where people gather because they share a genuine interest. The gallery's film nights capture some of that spirit.
To choose the films, he says he typically posts four options on the gallery’s Instagram account and lets people vote, although the choices are “mostly just my own whim.”
“I love showing slightly offbeat classics, foreign films, and movies with gorgeous cinematography,” he says.
Among those he’s shown so far are “In the Mood for Love” by Wong Kar-wai and Godard's “Pierrot le Fou,” and more recent hits like Bong Joon Ho's “Parasite” and Michel Gondry’s “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.”
For the first anniversary on Sunday, Oct. 4, he will be screening “Alien” at 5 PM and “Army of Darkness” at 8 PM. At 3:30 on the same day there will be a closing party for the current gallery exhibit, “SCRIPTIVE, Illuminations & Calligraphic Works by Candace Jensen & Sarah La Puerta.”
Vermont Childhood to a Life Behind the Camera
Aleshire, who grew up in Cuttingsville and Wallingford and now living in Shrewsbury, has a lifelong connection to film.
His father worked as a photographer for the Rutland Herald, and when Ben was a teenager, the two built a darkroom together. By age 19, he was exhibiting his photography publicly, with his first exhibition at the Paramount Theatre in Rutland.
As a young photographer, Aleshire remembers being nervous about approaching strangers and asking to photograph them. He worried about the possibility of being extractive or exoticizing the people he encountered. His father's advice changed the way he thought about photography.
"The photo isn't the point," his father told him. "It's about connecting with people and talking with them."
This belief that art is ultimately about relationships has continued to shape Aleshire's work.
A Studio, Or a Gallery?
Aleshire never set out to open a gallery. Initially, he was simply looking for affordable studio space. Rutland was out of reach. Then someone suggested the historic Granary in Brandon. He came almost on a whim.
As luck would have it, Warren Kimble, the well-known Vermont artist whose work and community involvement helped revitalize the Granary, happened to be outside when Aleshire arrived. Kimble brought him into the office to meet the Jeromes, who own and operate the space.
Once Aleshire saw the space and realized he could make the numbers work, another possibility began to take shape.
"I realized it really should be a gallery," he said.
The space was designed with that in mind. The result is the Aleshire Gallery, a contemporary art space that is intentionally more informal than a traditional commercial gallery, with several other artists joining as members.
The first exhibition in late September 2025 was a member show, providing an opportunity for artists connected to the space to introduce their work. The first curated exhibition, “Analog Forever,” followed in the spring and focused on analog photography.
This summer’s calligraphy exhibition was originally conceived as a solo show by Candace Jensen, who runs the In Situ eco-art residency in Westminster West. Jensen suggested bringing in Sarah La Puerta, an incoming In Situ artist resident, and their calligraphic illustrations create a powerful dialogue.
For Aleshire, that kind of evolving, collaborative structure is part of the gallery's appeal.
He hopes to continue with roughly three curated exhibitions each year, allowing artists to respond to one another and to develop work specifically for the space. The gallery will be a place where artists experiment, collaborate and build connections.
Adding to Brandon's Arts Tradition
Aleshire says he appreciates Brandon’s longtime active arts community. Warren Kimble's influence is particularly important to him. Kimble helped demonstrate that a Vermont gallery could embrace traditional Vermont art while also making room for contemporary work that asks questions about the world people are living in now. Aleshire says he wants to continue that conversation.
The gallery is also arriving at a moment when Brandon is experiencing a new wave of entrepreneurial and creative energy. Mat Clouser, who helped Aleshire establish the gallery, is also developing a new art-oriented venture in downtown Brandon.
Those developments suggest to Aleshire that Brandon's arts community is ready to add new chapters.
The gallery's spring exhibition will focus on the nude in art, a subject with a long history and room for contemporary explorations in the Vermont context.
For Aleshire, the gallery itself is also an ongoing experiment: What happens when artists share a space? What happens when a gallery is deliberately informal? And what does it mean to make contemporary art in a small Vermont town? The collaborative model is central to the gallery's identity.
Aleshire came to Brandon looking for a place to make art. He found a place where he could make art, show art, bring people together and help build something larger than a studio. In that sense, the Aleshire Gallery reflects the lesson he learned from his father decades ago.
The artwork — and the movies — matter because they help people connect with each other.
