Arts Calendar: Vermont Arts 2018

Author, journalist and historian Garrett Graff, who has conducted numerous interviews with special counsel Robert Mueller, will talk about his newest book, "Dawn of the Code War," and the larger Mueller/Russia investigation.

His previous book, "The Threat Matrix: Inside Robert Mueller's FBI and the War on Global Terror," may also be discussed. Both are available at Bear Pond Books.

With Q&A, refreshments, and book signing. Free and open to the public. A Vermont Arts 2018 Program of the Vermont Arts Council.

VCFA’s MFA in Film fall residency features a fantastic line-up of guest filmmakers with daily screenings at The Savoy Theater, as well as thesis readings on campus. The film fall residency takes place October 20-27, 2018.

All events are free and open to the public. Follow the link to learn more about MARWENCOL and to register for free tickets.

Warren Kimble: An Artists Journey
September 4-October 26, 2018
Opening Reception Friday September 7, 4:00-8:00 pm with a talk by the artists at 6:00 pm
Make Your Own Lazy Susan Workshop with Warren September 8-9. Pre-registrion is required. Fee $200 plus $50 for materials
The Gallery is thrilled to have a Warren Kimble exhibit in September that will draw on more than 50 years of Kimble’s experience as a fine artist, educator and antiques collector. An opening reception will be held on Friday September 7th from 4-8:00 pm with an Art Talk by Warren Kimble at 6 pm. The reception is free and refreshments will be served. Warren will lead a two-day workshop on September 8-9 at the Gallery. Participants will each assemble a wooden Lazy Susan and hand paint their creation to take home, under the artistic guidance of Kimble. $200 plus $50 for materials, pre-registration is required and space is limited!

The T. W. Wood Gallery at 46 Barre St in Montpelier, Vermont is pleased to announce an exhibit of the Vermont Modern Quilt Guild member show. The exhibit will be open for viewing from Tuesday, October 2, through Friday, October 26. There will be an opening reception with refreshments served and an opportunity to meet the artists on Thursday October 4, from 5:00-7:00 pm at the Gallery.
The Vermont Modern Quilting Guild mission is to encourage and inspire the growth and development of modern quilting through art, education, and community in Vermont and beyond. The Guild strives to encourage modern quilt making and collecting, provide educational activities, support and sponsor quilting activities such as community events that provide the opportunity to share the art and enjoyment of quilting and to encourage new quilters and fiber artists in non-traditional fiber projects.
Also on exhibit is Warren Kimble: An Artist’s Journey exhibit along with works from the Gallery’s permanent collection. The Gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday 12:00-4:00 pm and by appointment. The Gallery is located at 46 Barre Street at the Center for Arts and Learning in Montpelier.

Curated by Harlem Needle Arts founder and director Michelle Bishop, this special exhibit features pieces by eight contemporary textile artists from New York, Massachusetts, Philadelphia, New Jersey and Indianapolis. The works share and are defined by some element of thread construction, but are diverse in presentation, including quilting, embroidery, mixed media, costume, and fiber fusion. Each work speaks to the artist’s view of the African Diaspora and his or her own personal interpretation of historic and contemporary events.

Short Stories, an exhibit of assemblages and 2d work by Axel Stohlberg, will be on exhibit at the Gallery at River Arts September 6-October 28, 2018.

Assemblages are works of art created by grouping unrelated found objects. From painting, drawing, sculpture and assemblage, Stohlberg moves between the lines of recognizable and abstract images, feeling the freedom to explore different directions. From old armchair springs, miniature figurines, and twigs set into unconventional shadow boxes – each assemblage tells a story. Both relatable and unexpected, with a juxtaposition of everyday objects and punchline titles. His abstract landscapes include a variety of surface treatments, textures, and materials that compliment and relate to his assemblages.

Since selling “Axel’s Frame Shop and Gallery”, which Stohlberg founded over 30 years ago in Waterbury, he now devotes all his time to art. With residencies at Haystack Mountain School of Craft, Basin Harbor, and four residencies at the Vermont Studio Center, Stohlberg brings a breadth of experience.

Morrisville – Favorite Places, a group show featuring photography by 12 artists, will be on exhibit in the Copley Common Room at River Arts September 6-October 28, 2018.

Exemplifying the spirit of Morrisville through a sense of place, images range from natural riverviews to street scenes. Fireworks explode over the dam, bicycles congregate along the rail trail, mountains peak through iconic rooflines. Selected images feature strong compositional elements, technical ability, and a strong sense of place.

Participating artists include: Loretta Baer, Nancy Banks, Drew Bressel, Nan Carle-Beauregard, Ross Connelly, Chris Crothers, Kevin Fitzgerald, Ron Kelly, Orah Moore, Tina Pearson, Janine Stokes, and Aryk Tomlinson.

Edgewater Gallery in Stowe unveils a solo exhibition and new series of etched aluminum paintings by Homer Wells. New Dimensions in Landscape is on view October 1st through October 28th. There will be an opening reception on Friday, October 5th from 5:00-7:00 pm with an artist talk at 6:00pm. Homer Wells will also be at the Gallery for a demonstration of his techniques on Saturday, October 20th from 1:00-3:00 pm. Expect the unexpected as Wells unveils his new geometric constructions to play with perception and light.

Originally a sign maker by trade, Wells is one of Vermont’s preeminent metal sculptors. He works with recycled metal, using translucent paint over his spun aluminum designs to enhance reflected light. As viewers shift their gaze across the piece, the refraction and reflection create the appearance of clouds and water steadily moving across the panel. Burnishing, brushing, auto paint and sealants make his original pieces distinctive, versatile, and able to be installed indoors or outdoors.

Part artist and part magician, Homer Wells defies logic and conventional notions of 2D art in his aluminum constructions. His pieces take on an almost kinetic quality as light refracts across the surface, producing a 3D effect. Says Wells of this new series, “My work has often been likened to a glass of water or a breath of fresh air. These things do not threaten our beliefs nor do they call us to public action. These landscapes are new in technique and materials, testing what we see with our eyes/retinas and what we see with our minds. I hope the viewer will be encouraged to open the mind to seeing things that can only be seen in the mind’s eye.”

The work in New Dimensions in Landscape explores new possibilities beyond the flat 2D plane of the traditional landscape. By micro engraving the surface of the aluminum, air brushing colors and bending, doming, and curving surfaces, he creates a sculptural object that presents as a landscape painting, yet defies that expectation.

Etched patterns become an almost photographic representation of a mountainside and reflection. Says Wells, “It is my hope that the viewer will give each painting a chance to move and change in the light, finding that position in the room that makes the clouds move or even disappear, the water shimmer, and the sun rise.”

Homer’s Wells’ artistic works have been featured nationally, at the Burning Man Festival and in private collections. For further information on, New Dimensions in Landscape, please call Edgewater’s Gallery in Stowe at 802.760.6785, email info@edgewatergallery-vt.com or visit edgewatergallery.co/edgewater-in-stowe/

A tale of love and longing, Dear Elizabeth follows the beautiful and bittersweet friendship between Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell. Across oceans, continents, and three decades, these esteemed poets found a marriage of true minds in their eloquent correspondence. They traded hundreds of vibrant, witty, and passionate letters that now spring to life on stage. This intimate story paints a portrait of two ordinary – and quite extraordinary – lives.

11 days of independent films from out around the world and the USA. Includes NEQ Regional Film Showcase -films from VT, ME, NH, Northern NY and Québec. Daily receptions, Q&As with visiting filmmakers and more.

Hours: M-F 9-5 and Sat. 12-4

Pornography of War & Do Black Lives Matter? BY Namaya at the River Garden 157 Main Street in Brattleboro. Namaya Art Rat for Peace will show works from his recent New Orleans retrospective show "Building a Peaceable Community" at the New Orleans’s Art Center. Co-sponsored by Vermont Veterans for Peace and www.gracecares.org. A portion of profits benefit projects for Grace Cares.
At the New Orleans Arts Center part of the Prospect 4, “One of the most compelling shows on peace arts in New Orleans this season.” Namaya said, "As a veteran, I am committed to speaking out against the impact of war and militarism."

This exhibit includes Peace & Human Rights Arts from the past decade: Key exhibits: Do Black Lives Matter? Pornography of War (Art on the impact of War and Militarism), Konsume (Cereal Killers & Sugar Junkies), Immigration (Welcome we are a nation of Immigrants), End Apartheid in the Holy Land,

Internationally recognized author and illustrator David Macaulay will exhibit images from eight of his books, including preliminary sketches and finished art created between 1982 and 2010. According to the artist, the books range from the "history of architecture and the workings of technology to aspects of the human body, the decline of society, and why a chicken once crossed a road." He says that the works "represent a tiny sliver of the vast amount of flotsam left in the wake of each book.”

Dates & Times:
Exhibition: Monday, August 27th 2018 – Saturday, November 3rd 2018
Reception: Thursday, September 27th, 4-6 pm in the Christine Price Gallery
Artist Talk: Thursday, September 27th, 12:30 pm in the Herrick Auditorium

Brief Synopsis:
This exhibition is a collection of photographs, divided by images that document human interventions and text, in rural and urban landscapes, and through images that chronicles things Robert finds amusing. Beginning his photographic journey at Castleton, Robert reveals a photographic theme of capturing daily moments in time and space.

About the Artist:
Robert Gilson photographs daily wherever he is, and does not restrict his photographic practice to a specific subject. He is a Castleton University alumni, and his photographs have been exhibited and published in the U.S. and in Europe.

This exhibition demonstrates the uniqueness, as well as the intersections, of the printmaking practices that Hammond and Smith have developed as contemporaries and friends over the last twenty years.

Bryan Memorial Gallery presents its Flagship exhibition featuring juried landscape paintings from New England Artists. This year's top prize went to Andrew Orr for Summer Shadows. The gallery is open seven days a week until october 8th when the hours are Thursday through Sunday 11-4. The exhibit features 69 artists and more than 100 paintings.

Bryan Memorial Gallery presents Location, Location, Location, a Vermont Landscape painting exhibit of works by its founder, Alden Bryan (1913-2001) and six contemporary artists. For this exhibit, the contemporary artists followed in Bryan's footsteps, returning to specific locations where he painted as long as 75 years ago to paint the scene again today. Locations include views in Stowe, Waterville, and Cambridge. Hours are daily 11-4 until October 8th when the gallery is open Thursday through Sunday 11-4.

The Brandon Artists Guild (the BAG) announces a show of new paintings by Leicester artist Ashley Wolff. The exhibit, “Reinventing the View” runs August 31 through November 5. The public is invited to meet the artist at the opening reception Friday, August 31 from 5 to 7PM.

Ashley has built a devoted following with her colorful watercolors, gouache paintings and children’s book illustrations. The vibrant, celebratory pieces she has selected for “Reinventing the View” stem from a more personal source.

“I chose the title, ‘Reinventing the View’ to mark being back in my home state, but without either parent,” Ashley explains, “After 34 years in California I returned to live close to my mother. The lush bouquets of flowers painted in gouache are an outpouring of emotion following Mom’s death in May. She loved saturated color and anything purple.”

The other half of the show includes transparent watercolors. “It’s a medium I first learned and practiced with my father, who died 30 years ago,” says Ashley. “So it appears, without conscious planning, that I’m honoring both parents with work they would have loved if they could be here.”

“Reinventing the Landscape” is part of Vermont Arts 2018 – a year-long celebration highlighting arts events across the state, sponsored by the Vermont Arts Council.

"Waterfowl Wonders and Amusing Animals by Three Self-taught Addison County, Vermont carvers – Gary Starr, Chuck Herrmann, and William Holway - greet delighted visitors to the Henry Sheldon Museum in Middlebury, Vermont.

Gary Starr is a world-class self-taught carver whose decorative decoys and birds are on display at the Sheldon – from three magnificent oversized shore birds – one standing, a second running, and a third feeding – to a variety of life-sized colorful birds including a Puffin, American Oyster Catcher, Belted King Fisher, Baltimore Oriole, and Lilac Breasted Roller.

Before perfecting his drawing, Bill Holway began his artistic pursuits by whittling and was one of the original craftsmen when Frog Hollow the Vermont State Craft Center was started in Middlebury in 1971. For years, Bill Holway was known locally for his “performance drawings” at Kennedy Brothers in Vergennes. His wood carvings at the Sheldon feature a moose with an iconic rack of antlers and a prominent beard-like dewlap under its chin, a brown bear, a frolicking horse, and more exotic animals such as long-horned goat, hippopotamus, elephant, zebra, camel, and giraffes.

Chuck Herrmann's carvings are a reflection of his deep commitment to the Vermont forest, its history and value. As an example, true to his investigative and collecting habits, he carved birds and waterfowl from remnants of a “root fence” that was once located on a farm field at New Haven Junction at the intersection of Routes 7 and 17.

November 11, 2018 marks the 100th anniversary of the Armistice that ended World War One. The Sheldon Museum has combed its collection and archives along with the help of Addison County private collections to mount an exhibit that features roles played by Vermonters in what was called the “War to End All Wars.” The exhibit concentrates on Vermont’s Addison County residents who were in the service during WWI.

Central to the exhibit are the histories, memorabilia, photographs, and letters of three Middlebury residents: Jacob J. Ross, M.D., who served as Flight Surgeon in France with the 17th Aero Squadron caring for the sick and wounded; Waldo Heinrichs, a pilot with the 95th Aero Squadron, known then as “luckiest man in the war” for surviving two plane crashes and internment in a German hospital; Werner Neuse, a German by birth, who enlisted in the German army as a teenager shortly after his father, Richard Neuse, also a German soldier was killed. Werner Neuse later immigrated to the United State, became a citizen, earned his graduate degrees and joined the faculty of Middlebury College German Department and helped to start the College’s German summer language school. After the war Neuse and Heinrichs lived on the same block of South Street in Middlebury, while Ross established his home and office on College Street.

Their stories and those of others from Addison County are featured in the exhibit, as are colorful recruitment and war advocacy posters from the Sheldon’s Research Center Archives, together with WWI uniforms, helmets, armaments, books, and first-hand accounts.

The exhibit culminates with "In Flanders Field," an eloquent, provocative art installation by internationally-recognized artist Fran Bull of Brandon, Vermont. Based on the WWI poem by Colonel John McCrae, who taught pathology at the University of Vermont’s Medical School before the war, Fran Bull reimagines the verses as visual art. Her points of departure are the skies with singing birds, fields of red poppies and white crosses, and the lamentations of corpses. Larks become bomber planes, crosses and coffins morph into formal grids. Flowers and blood-red rags stand for lost treasures and remembrance.

The Photography of Robert Cohen
Exhibition Dates: October 4th through November 12, 2018
Opening Reception: October 4th (5:30 pm to 7:00 pm)

LEONARD ROBERT COHEN

He began his photographic journey in elementary school using an Ansco box camera. His “eye” has evolved considerably since then (along with the camera). He is an inveterate traveler and photographs what appeals to his eye and the moment, from whimsy to abstraction to light to nature.

The Bryan Memorial Gallery is excited to once again offer the wildly successful on-line auction through https://www.Biddingowl/BryanMemorialGallery. At the site you will also see that this year a raffel of Julie Baker Albright's Blue Plums in Red Pan is being offerred. Come join the fun and see what wonders may be yours. Bidding ends at 5:00 November17th, at which time winners will be notified.

October 5 through November 18: Mitchell • Giddings Fine Arts is pleased to present Deidre Scherer’s
“Human Textures”, showcasing her paper and fabric weavings, as well as collaborative vessels with artist Jackie Abrams. Artist Opening Reception Friday, October 5 from 5-7pm, Artist Talk featuring both Artists Saturday, October 27 at 5pm.

Pioneering in the medium of thread-on-layered-fabric, Scherer's collages, both in fabric and paper media, engage the viewer with the tenderness of being human. The Rhode Island School of Design honored Scherer with their 2010 Alumni Association Award for Artistic Achievement “for the innovative medium of textile art she has developed, and for her thought-provoking investigations of our society’s views of aging, reflections on life, death, family relationships and the welfare of future generations.” Scherer has exhibited in hundreds of shows since 1979, and has been featured in several galleries nationwide including the Baltimore Museum of Art and the Heller Museum in NYC.

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.

Southern Vermont Arts Center’s Fall Member Show Inside Out includes the work of SVAC’s artist members who represent a variety of styles and mediums: abstract, portrait, and landscape painters alongside photographers, sculptors, and other creators. There’s something for every taste, and all artwork is for sale. Free & open to the public. Suggested donation $5.

Artwork: Terry Findeisen, "Portrait of a Conversation," watercolor on paper

This class will take on a more substantial play than in times past, chosen by the instructor. Students will be working on the play for nine weeks - two and a half hours per week, meeting every Tuesday from 10:00-12:30. The class will be open to students aged 10-15, and will focus a bit more deeply on the acting process than previously. Cost: $350

An artist’s life embraces every job description of a small business (creative director, marketing director, bookkeeper, construction manager, secretary, janitor, technician, publicist). Resources for Artists is a new series of educational and resource based classes to support artists and the development of their careers. This first workshop in the series will focus on the following areas:
Taking Charge/Responsibility for your art career and professional life.
Circulating Your Work
Supporting Your Work
Maintaining Your Practice
Throughout the class, we will define our ideas of success, get organized, differentiate ourselves as artists, plan and set goals, discuss strategies for marketing, funding, networking, and the day to day of maintaining the profession of being an artist. Cost: $160 Scholarships available.

Offered by Main Street Art's Managing Director, Heather Geoffrey. In conjunction with her artistic practice Heather has been an organizational administrator and an independent consultant offering guidance and support services to artistic and creative individuals and organizations and businesses. Heather works in a dynamic collaboration aimed at cultivating her client's connection to the source of their artistic practice while assisting them in navigating the obstacles creative individuals are faced with on a daily basis. Heather has 24 years of experience in organizational development and executive management with a variety of individuals, nonprofit organizations and creative institutions. As a creative consultant she specialized in revamping organizational structures, increasing available funding, the application of creative marketing and implementing strategic planning.