Arts Calendar: Vermont Arts 2018

The opening reception for Sorry, but Hello will be held on Friday, Dec. 14 from 6-8 p.m. at the Castleton University Bank Gallery, located at 104 Merchants Row in Rutland.

The exhibition, created by Rutland-based painter and ceramic artist Reid Brechner, cautiously re-examines a formative body of work under the lens of place, in tandem with an exploration of newness and what it means to belong. The work, along with selected writing, represents the impossibility of disconnecting emotional affect from even the coolest, most minimal, concrete form of art creation.

Sorry, but Hello will be on display at the Castleton University Bank Gallery in Downtown Rutland from Dec. 14 through Jan. 16

Shop local this holiday season! The 2018 BCA Holiday Artist Market takes place on Friday, December 14 from 4-8 p.m. and Saturday, December 15 from 10-5 p.m. in Contois Auditorium (located in Burlington's City Hall).

The BCA Holiday Market offers unique, handmade gifts by Vermont artists. This year’s market features a diverse offering of ceramics, jewelry, games, clothing, accessories, and more! The BCA Holiday Market is free and open to the public.

Gerald Auten uses powdered graphite or graphite pencils on dense, smooth hot-pressed paper or onto the back of old museum posters and postcards. To the powdered graphite, he adds a bonding element, WD40, turpentine, or linseed oil, often buffing the surface. The work takes many months to achieve the dense metallic, oily surfaces. The affect is luminous, deeply saturated, mysterious and mischievous.
Curated by Dian Parker

Join us at the Front for our second annual holiday art sale! Come to find unique holiday gifts or something special for yourself at this four-day pop-up event. Artist members at the Front will be offering original artworks, prints, cards and more! Don’t miss it!

Thursday & Friday, December 13 & 14, 9am-7pm,
Saturday & Sunday, December 15 & 16, 11am-5pm

6 Barre Street, Montpelier

The Christine Price Gallery in the Fine Arts Center at Castleton University will have on display "Cellblock Visions: Prison Art in America" from November 9 through December 21. An opening reception will be held Friday, November 9 from 5-6 p.m. The Christine Price Gallery is open Monday-Friday from 8 a.m.-4:30 p.m. and is free and open to the public.

The art show is not simply an expression of the personal thoughts and emotions of the incarcerated artist, but transcends these in the kind of creative engagement that changes a person’s thinking. This work proves that the unlimited human capacity to create beauty and goodness exists in all of us, no less in an incarcerated person, and can be elicited just as violence can.

About the Artist:
Phyllis Kornfeld, author and lecturer of "Cellblock Visions: Prison Art in America" and a contributor to Art Education Beyond the Classroom, has been working directly with incarcerated men and women for 35 years —in all levels of security from county jail to maximum security to death row, and around the country —providing the transformative experience of creating sincere and beautiful art.

An exhibit of small works presented for sale during the holiday season. Included is our "mini exhibit", a wall of 50 panels measuring 50 sq inches each - 50@ 50!

OPENING RECEPTION: Friday, November 30th, 5:30-7:30pm

The joyful felted quilts in this show are found in the middle room of the gallery. The reception is Sunday November 11th from 2-4 PM. Heartbeet Felts is a vibrant life sharing community in Hardwick and Craftsbury that includes adults with developmental diabilities, living in a supportive enviroment.

Bryan Memorial Gallery's annual members' exhibit takes on a new aspect this year: SIZE. In a two part Installation, spanning the Main Gallery and the Middle Room, gallery members will submit GEMS and GIANTS. As with Previous GEMS exhibits, these works will be a wonderland of small, affordable, fine artworks for holiday giving. Images will not exceed 8x10, frame included not to exceed 12x14. The GIANTS will be a minimum of 36 inches or more in a single direction. We invite you to come take a trip into the small and the tall.

Chandler’s annual holiday artisans market offers shoppers a wide array of fine gifts for the holidays. The market will be open Thursdays and Fridays noon to 6 pm, Saturdays 9 am to 6 pm, and Sundays 11 am to 5 pm.
For more info: 802-728-9878 or outreach@chandler-arts.org

An artist participating in the upcoming Spotlight Gallery show asked if there was a theme. The answer was "fill your wall with work you love." Seven artists will do just that in 7Women, 7Walls opening Friday, November 9. From fiber arts and collage to encaustic and found objects, the work spans the vast artistic landscape of Vermont.

Work by: 

Mary Admasian
Alisa Dworsky
Karen Henderson
Evie Lovett
Hannah Morris
Janet Van Fleet
Kristen M. Watson

Artists rectption Nov. 9 from 5-7 p.m.

Nov. 9 - Dec. 28. Gallery Hours M-F, 8:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Calling first is recommended to ensure availability. 

Main Street Arts presents:
Seeing It Through - The Artwork of Liz Guzynski
Opening Reception: Thursday, November 15th 5:30 - 7:00 p.m.
Exhibition Dates: November 15th through December 28th

About Liz Guzynski
I have always been entranced by the beauty and strangeness of nature, and I believe that everything is alive and that consciousness permeates the web of being.

My job as an artist is to celebrate the world’s variety, complexity and fragility. I’m driven to combine the story-telling bias of illustration with the gestural language of painting and the pure emotion of colors in order to explore the kinship between all things and beings.

I began my art journey a bit late in life. After finishing a PhD, I found that academic life was not going to satisfy my internal creative howling. On a whim, I picked up an old box of Eagle Prismacolor pencils and started messing around. I loved not only the realistic effects, but also the meditative process of building slow, beautiful layers of color. I pursued pencils diligently for several years until I won the Colored Pencil Society of America’s highest honor in 2012.

Meanwhile, colored pencil spurred me to explore other art media. While studying botanical illustration at UNC-Chapel Hill, I discovered new tools — including watercolor, acrylics and inks — with which I could describe the exquisite life forms all around me.

Then, a summer workshop in egg tempera in Alstead, NH spiraled out of control, and I found myself living in an old Victorian house in Bellows Falls, joyfully creating theatrical magic with Main Street Arts, and discovering a whole new world of natural wonderment.

My portraits of plants and animals try to capture the sense of personhood we normally grant only to humans. For example, the Chickens in the Parlor series is a light-hearted way to demonstrate the deep subjectivity of other animals. Conversely, when I paint people, I try to lend them the same dignity and wisdom that I see in chickens and other critters.

My obsession with design has a couple of other outlets: sculptural beadwork; interior decorative painting; and gardening, which allows me to work with flora and fauna in yet another dimension.

Four years ago, Vermont Folklife Center researchers Greg Sharrow and Andy Kolovos began fieldwork to explore the grass-roots food movement in Vermont. Sharrow described his early meetings with farmers in the Rutland area as revealing “the spokes on a wheel”, with the hub located at Boardman Hill Farm, where Greg and Gay Cox have lived and farmed for more than three decades.

Growing Food, Growing Farmers is an intimate look at the expanding community of young farmers in Rutland County and the surrounding area. The exhibit showcases farmers, often with  their families, through large-format photographic portraits by Macaulay Lerman. Sharrow’s metaphor of the “wheel,”a central theme of the exhibit, is conveyed in the form of biographies and audio interview excerpts that complement the portraits of more than a dozen current and former farmers, many of whom trace some aspect of their agricultural trajectory to the Cox’s mentorship and generosity.

Growing Food, Growing Farmers is the product of an ethnographic research approach: making visible the experiences of one community of farmers that exists within the larger network of local food production in Vermont.

OPENING RECEPTION: On September 7, 2018 from 5:00-7:00 PM, the Vermont Folklife Center in Middlebury, VT will host a public reception and gallery talk. Complimentary locally sourced food and drink, including beer, wine, craft cheeses, produce and more will be served.

This Tony Award-winning musical follows the struggles of Matilda against her neglectful parents and cruel headmistress. An avid reader and brilliant young girl, Matilda dreams of a better life and a happy home. With the help of her kind teacher Miss Honey, the other students in her class, and a touch of magic, Matilda takes a stand against the evil forces in her life. The addictively raucous score propels this heartwarming story of empowerment.

October 30, 2018 - January 4, 2019
Current Paintings by Mary McKay Lower and Elizabeth Nelson

Mary McKay Lower will exhibit landscapes and still life paintings. Lower paints what she observes daily, watching familiar surroundings go through seasonal changes.

Elizabeth Nelson will feature painted works from her travels to Iceland.

An opening reception will be held on Thursday, November 8, from 5-7:00 pm with music by the Two Thirds as Far duo. The reception is free and refreshments will be served. The Gallery's permanent works also on display.

46 Barre Street, Montpelier, VT
Gallery hours are Tuesday-Saturday 12:00-4:00 pm

Exhibiting Artists Include: Gael Crowl, hats and more; Anne Davis,  animal cards, prints and other creations; Peg Harrigan photography; Brian Respond, Hand blown glassware (pictured); Liz Le Serviget, festive original paintings, cards, puzzles; plus additional artists.

Silent Auction through December 15.

Open Tuesday through Saturday, 12-4 p.m. or by appointment

Special Holiday Hours
In addition to our regular hours  we will be open Fridays December 7, 15, and 21 noon-8 p.m.
THE GALLERY WILL BE CLOSED FOR THANKSGIVING THURSDAY 11/22/ & FRIDAY 11/23
OPEN SATURDAY 11/24 NOON-4:00 P.M.

Mitchell • Giddings Fine Arts is pleased to present “Donald Saaf, Outside and Inside”, showcasing recent paintings, illustrations, and sculpture. Exhibit will run through January 6. There will be an Artist Talk Saturday, December 8 at 5pm. Donald Saaf and this exhibition have been supported by a grant from the Artist’s Resource Trust.

For over 20 years Saaf has been exploring a place where fine art and folk art intersect. His subject matter draws from the local experience of community, family and immediate surroundings as well as an interior dream place. Although some imagery in his work is personal, he is always striving for the universal. “Outside and Inside” features “mostly paintings of the community, but they’re also about the internal, invisible connections. I’m interested in memory; the memory of place and experience. The memory of walking down a street imagining the view from a birds eye view, while simultaneously seeing a house in the distance, noticing small objects on the ground and briefly experiencing other people’s lives as they pass by. It’s the moment that happens when the external world overlaps with the internal world.”

Mitchell • Giddings Fine Arts is committed to presenting innovative, contemporary works in a variety of media that stimulate both the seasoned collector and aesthetic explorer.

Altered Spaces Group Exhibition – September 13, 2018 to January 7, 2019

Opening reception: October 6, 2018 at 5:30pm – free and open to the public

Spruce Peak Performing Arts Center is pleased to announce a group exhibition on the mountain in Stowe for the Fall and early ski season. The exhibition opens with a dynamic collection of work - including collage, photography, painting, and multimedia installation in September which will build in layers throughout the Fall - inviting the public to revisit and interact as the exhibition continues. The exhibition is curated by Kelly Holt and features artists: Paul Gruhler, Dana Heffern, Ric Kasini Kadour, Lydia Kern, Erika Senft Miller, John M. Miller and Kathryn Lipke Vigesaa.

Artists in this exhibition are responding to the following curatorial statement:

perspectives shift

thoughts drift

distances lift

colors move - are they right here or off in the distance?

who is the viewer and who is being looked upon?

how can one alter space to break down barriers and biases?

put it up. take it down. what is your ultimate reality?

explore. experiment. respond.

Artists are working with moments of expanded consciousness - from altering the space of the found photograph, to revisiting one’s home area code and finding that those spaces vibrate with memories and new hues of color in the camera. Photographic images are collaged to conjure innovative ideas of the surface of space, with homage to architectural detail, street photography and organic references and materials. Installation works with shapes of animal bones and color to create an altered atmosphere. Paintings vary from sublime journeys in color to working through space with whole-body physical gesture and movement.

Ric Kasini Kadour speaks of his series Portraits on the Arrival “I imagine the men portrayed here on the verge of a new way of thinking and, to commemorate the moment, have their picture taken. The swirl of color conveys the ecstatic joy that comes with new ideas and fresh thinking. This is not typically a moment we commemorate in our culture. Perhaps it should be.” Paul Gruhler’s geometric abstract paintings alter space with intensity and refinement of color. Says Gruhler, “I have endeavored to organize the forms according to shape and proportion while harmonizing the tones of my palette to create a sense of a present moment that is both floating and timeless. Attention to close values and shifts of color develop this harmonic energy.”

For further information on the Altered Spaces exhibition, please call 802.760.4634 or visit sprucepeakarts.org.

Spruce Peak Arts Center hours:

Wednesday-Saturday 12pm-6pm, and prior to performances and events.

About The Spruce Peak Performing Arts Center
The Spruce Peak Performing Arts Center is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit arts organization whose mission is to inspire, educate, and entertain. The 420-seat multi-use theatre, which opened in December 2010, offers world-renowned entertainment as well as emerging artists and performers from around the region, state, nation and world.

Join us to welcome and celebrate our two new exhibits on Thursday, November 8th, 5-7pm for a Reception & Artist Talk. Free Admission & Refreshments, Cash Bar. Exhibiting November 1 - January 9

REMEMBRANCE: by Nina Dubois & Athena Petra Tasiopoulos

Tasiopoulos is a mixed media collage artist and fine art photographer. Athena describes herself as a collector of second hand images – primarily ‘cabinet card’ portrait photography and figure studies from the late 19th – early 20th Century. “My imagination is continuously lured by the mystery of found photographs – ‘instant relatives’ discarded and forgotten in antique stores. It is as if these souls exist in limbo – simultaneously trapped yet saved within photography. By re-inventing the portrait, I aim to disjoint my subjects from an antiquated identity, allowing them to transcend the constraints of time and place.” – Athena Petra Tasiopoulos.

Nina Dubois is an artist, feminist, and educator living in Vermont. Dubois works in assemblage, flash poetry, painting, and collage in an effort to investigate history, text, and place. Real and imagined. Personal and political. “When I make something I am actively exploring issues from media, text, and the constructed environment, especially as it relates to women.”

Join us to welcome and celebrate our two new exhibits on Thursday, November 8, 5-7pm for a Reception & Artist Talk. Free Admission & Refreshments, Cash Bar. Exhibiting November 1 - January 9

COLORFUL & CURVACEOUS: Captivating Quilt Art by Judy B. Dales

Dales began making quilts in 1970 with a focus on geometric patterns, but soon evolved to fluid designs comprised of curved lines and lyrical shapes. When Dales discovered curves, the magic began, and her process now alternates between effortless and complex, utilizing layers of tracing paper to allow for the evolution of her design. For Dales, it is humbling to apply simple tools such as scissors, needle and thread to fabric and have the result be a thing of beauty, an expression of a vision, idea or fantasy. The grace of the curves merges with the richness of the fabric and creates an effect that never ceases to entice and enchant.

Dales has exhibited nationally and been featured in many prestigious museums, collections, and books including: the Clinton Presidential Library, The National Quilt Museum, The Vermont Governor’s Office Gallery, Shelburne Museum, Visions in San Diego, The Renwick Gallery at The Smithsonian Museum, The American Quilter’s Society Show and Museum, as well as been included in the book The 100 Best Quilts of The 20th Century. She has taught workshops in color and design internationally, as well as being a published author of her book on curved-seam piecing, Curves In Motion.

Solo Exhibition-
Roots: Paintings by TJ Cunningham

EDGEWATER GALLERY in Stowe
151 Main Street • Stowe, Vermont • 802.760.6785 Contact: Kelly Holt ​kelly@edgewatergallery-vt.com
On view: December 1, 2018 - January 11, 2018

Edgewater Gallery in Stowe announces a welcoming home, solo exhibition by TJ Cunningham aptly titled, ​Roots. T​he exhibition will be on view from December 1st through January 11th, with an opening reception on Friday, December 7 from 5-7pm. There will be an artist talk at 6pm. Cunningham inspires with his thought provoking landscapes of his native home, Addison, Vermont. Cunningham recently reflected on his upbringing in Vermont, and the powerful feelings of place as it relates to his art "One of my earliest, childhood memories is of an evening walk in November as woodsmoke wafted from the chimneys of my boyhood town. I remember the sharp feeling of cold air in my nostrils accompanied by the gentle smell of Vermont’s long heating season...The scent of woodsmoke always conjures those feelings of contented peace...More and more when I paint the landscape, I am searching for a similar experience; however, unlike smell, painting is an abstract language with a series of shapes, colors, and textures that together bring meaning... These are the places that mean the most to me; they are the scenes that evoke all of the joy and longing connected to my thoughts of home. They are my roots."

Known for his depth and layering of oil colors, majestic Vermont skyscapes, stretching farmlands, and meandering river waters, Cunningham once again delivers the scenes we recognize as the quietude of true homeland in this exhibition.

Cunningham received his formal training at Pensacola Christian College. He enjoys connecting with living artists in his travels, whose techniques he studies and whose work Cunningham follows and admires. The artist works directly in the landscape and from plein air studies in his studio in Tennessee. He teaches plein air painting workshops in several locations across the United States. Cunningham’s work is exhibited and collected nationwide, as well as in Europe.

For further information on ​Roots​, please call Edgewater Gallery in Stowe at 802.760.6785, email info@edgewatergallery-vt.com, or visit edgewatergallery.co/edgewater-in-stowe

The exhibition, created by Rutland-based painter and ceramic artist Reid Brechner, cautiously re-examines a formative body of work under the lens of place, in tandem with an exploration of newness and what it means to belong. The work, along with selected writing, represents the impossibility of disconnecting emotional affect from even the coolest, most minimal, concrete form of art creation.

“Although these works are often presented in conglomerate, I created each piece with individual intention, individual character, and I believe that they stand just as easily alone as they do together. As a result, each installation of the work is performative in nature. There is no set order or arrangement for the pieces to take. Hence, some or all of the creative activity occurs within the process of installation,” Brechner said.

The Front celebrates the opening of SHOW 29, on Friday, December 7, from 4 to 8 p.m. The exhibition, running December 7 through January 20, will feature recent work of the gallery’s membership of Vermont-based contemporary artists. The opening reception is free and open to the public, with live music from Jay Saffran.

Gallery Hours: Friday 4-7pm, Saturday and Sunday 11am-5pm.

For more information about The Front’s news and events, visit thefrontvt.com.
Contact the gallery at info@thefrontvt.com or by phone (802) 552-0877.
The Front is located 6 Barre Street in downtown Montpelier, diagonally across and around the corner from the Savoy Theatre.

Shop local this holiday season! The 2018 BCA Holiday Artist Market takes place on Friday, December 14 from 4-8 p.m. and Saturday, December 15 from 10-5 p.m. in Contois Auditorium (located in Burlington's City Hall).

The BCA Holiday Market offers unique, handmade gifts by Vermont artists. This year’s market features a diverse offering of ceramics, jewelry, games, clothing, accessories, and more! The BCA Holiday Market is free and open to the public.

Create a felted tapestry! Tapestry needle felting is a technique that uses barbed needles to decorate a felt surface with design. In this class, students may begin with the instructors stencils or create a design of their choosing. We will combine simple design shapes and lots of color choices, to create a beautifully unique and personal tapestry. Whether you are a beginner or a seasoned felter, this class offers lots of fun, guidance, tips and inspiration for you to continue your journey with wool felt. A wet felting demonstration is also included, providing students with a practical understanding of this simple technique.

$100 (plus $8 materials fee) Pre-registration is required
Contact:

Get creative and make art together!

Families are invited to drop-in to the BCA Center every third Saturday of the month to make their own artwork inspired by our current exhibitions. Each Family Art Saturday offers a different art making project that will ignite the imaginations of your family members! Admission is free.

Create an original work of art inspired by BCA’s current exhibitions.