A quickly disappearing winter in New England
Monuments to Lost Ski Trails
39×70 in
Acrylic on Canvas
Kasey Child
This fall and winter, I’ve been following the Vermont Ski and Snowboard Museum, which has been sharing books and ephemera about the hundreds of Vermont ski trails that have disappeared over the years. It’s a reminder of how much has changed, and how much could be lost in the future.

I’ve started using the ski trail symbols—the green circle and blue square—as metaphors. The green circle represents beginner trails, and the blue square indicates intermediate trails. These trail signs now serve as a way to think about whether future generations will even have the opportunity to learn to ski or snowboard.  

There’s a profound cognitive dissonance in the fact that we drive SUVs year-round to ski on snow that’s slowly disappearing. I was struck by this contradiction during a visit to an REI store about a year ago. As I pulled into the parking lot, almost every car I saw was a reflection of inefficiency—none of them were electric vehicles, and not a single one could achieve 35 mpg. Worse still, there were no charging stations in sight. Here we were, burning fossil fuels to get to a store that sells camping gear and specialty hiking pants—gear we buy to engage with nature, even as we contribute to its degradation.

I painted my first winter painting, For Sale: Child Skis, Never Snows, with the title an homage to the shortest story ever written.  That was around February 2024, approaching a full winter without snow that could stay.  You could see culture melting.

In September 2024, this tension began to dominate my creative work. I became fixated on painting winter scenes, trying to capture the beauty of the season while also confronting the impacts of climate change. It’s a delicate balance, and one that feels more urgent with each passing year as we watch the future of skiing—and winter itself—become increasingly uncertain.
Monuments to Lost Ski Trails

Mixing purple

Will Winter Forgive Us?
