“Art is for Kitchens!” proudly trumpets one poster for sale at the barn-cum-museum of Bread and Puppet Theater (753 Heights Rd., Glover, 802/525-3031, www.breadandpuppet.org, 10 a.m.–4 p.m. daily June–Oct., free). With its mission that art should be accessible to the masses, Bread and Puppet Theater began more than 40 years ago with counterculture hand- and rod- puppet performances on New York’s Lower East Side.

Founder Peter Schumann moved back to the land in the 1970s, taking over an old farm in the middle of the Kingdom and presenting bigger and more elaborate political puppet festivals every summer.

Along the way, the troupe virtually invented a new art form, pioneering the construction of larger-than-life papier-mâché puppets of gods and goddesses and other figures that now regularly spice up the atmosphere at left-of-center political protests around the world.

The Bread and Puppet Theater still performs on its original farm stage in Glover throughout the summer, before taking performances on tour in the fall. On the grounds, the old barn has been transformed into a “museum” filled with 10-foot-tall characters from past plays, along with photographs and descriptions of the political context of the times. A smaller school bus has been converted into a “cheap art” museum, where you can buy original works for $5 or less—and even hang them in your kitchen.