Arts

Preachers and Poets, the third collaborative poetry reading by Tom Ragle and Don McLean, will be presented on Thursday, April 21 at Guilford Community Church at 7:00 pm.  Admission is by a donation in any amount,  to benefit the work of the Church.

This program, the third in the series,  takes its title from the fact that four of the poets were also ordained ministers in three different denominations: Anglicans George Herbert and Robert Herrick, and, on very opposite poles, both strict in their particular ways, American Puritan Edward Taylor and English Jesuit, Gerard Manley Hopkins.  Another connection between the poets is that a majority of them did not see their poetry published in their lifetimes, and several were unknown to the public, including Emily Dickinson, who joins the lineup.  Completing the cast of three English and three American poets is Walt Whitman.  Numerous and interesting connections, in terms of both subject matter and technique amongst these poets, will be revealed during the evening. 

West Brattleboro, Vt. – Putney-based artist Adrienne Ginter has just installed two solo exhibits for spring viewing at opposite ends of the state. Locally, a show of twenty finely detailed watercolors, oils, and paper-cuttings can be seen through May at All Souls Church Unitarian Universalist in West Brattleboro. An opening reception is set for Saturday, April 16, 4:30 to 6:-00 p.m. The Governor’s Gallery at the State House in Montpelier is hosting a large exhibit of her paper-cuttings through late June.

The exhibit gracing gallery spaces at All Souls Church includes both intimately scaled and large-format works, some in archival print form. Ginter’s work explores elements of the natural world as well as fanciful narratives depicting ancient myths, history, and her personal experience. In her artist’s statement, Ginter shares that “every scene in nature tells a million little stories, and I work to incorporate an extreme amount of detail to tell not only the macro but the micro stories in a scene. This gives the viewer a greater sense of depth, not only visually but narratively, depending on how close they choose to engage with the piece.” It can take weeks to complete her largest paintings and 30 or more hours for up to ten layers of work in paper.

Mitchell • Giddings Fine Arts is pleased to present Color & Construct, an exhibit featuring the mixed media assemblages of Lauren Pollaro. The show opens with a receptionThursday, April 21, at 5pm and continues through May 29. An Artist Talk is scheduled for Saturday, May 14 at 5pm.

 Lauren was born in Brooklyn, NY in 1962, and comes from a family of accomplished artists. Her father, Paul Pollaro, taught, served as Assistant Director of the MacDowell Colony, Peterborough, NH, and has exhibited nationally over a hugely successful and lengthy career.

You are cordially invited to the new exhibition, Susan Brearey: Elemental Images, reception for the artist and book launch – Saturday April 2, 4-6pm, C.X. Silver Gallery, 814 Western Avenue, Brattleboro, VT (802) 257-7898. Exhibition open daily by appointment. cxsilvergallery.com/susan-brearey.

Sandglass Theater’s New Visions Series presents When I Put On Your Glove
Join Sandglass in a process of transformation.

On April 1st -3rd Shoshana Bass will be performing her first work-in-progress showing of When I Put On Your Glove, which navigates the landscape of generational, artistic inheritance through puppetry, dance and spoken word. The piece explores Shoshana’s relationship to her father’s Autumn Portraits vignettes, and investigates past and present through the memories living within the puppets. Through engaging with the puppets, the piece addresses universal questions of belonging, childhood, fear of loss, and death. This piece will be presented as part of Sandglass Theater’s New Visions Series, which serves as a laboratory for new works by artists in the field of puppetry and movement-based theater.

Auditions will be held for two upcoming one-act plays on Tuesday February 23rd (6 to 8 p.m.) and Sunday February 28th (3 to 5 p.m.) The production is a project of Guilford Center Stage. Written and directed by local author Michael Nethercott, both works will be 

premiered in June. Nocturne Titanica is a mythological take on the sinking of the Titanic. The Lace Jury is based on one of the first all-women juries in the country at the turn of the century. Rehearsals will be largely in May, and the actual performances are Friday June 3, Saturday June 4 (both evening shows),

Brattleboro, Vt. – Painter Judy Hawkins, whose studio is a popular stop on the annual Putney Craft Tour in November, is showing recent work in gallery spaces at All Souls Church UU in West Brattleboro through the end of March. An artist’s reception is set for 2 to 4 p.m. on Saturday, February 13.

Judy knew she was an artist from the age of five or six and always seemed to have a view of her surroundings that was different from that of her friends. “When I paint,” she shares, “I have an internal ‘dialog’ with myself. I think this ‘conversation’ is hard-wired, but I’ve only recently recognized how important and integrated it is to how I see and interpret my sensory world, and how it takes form and color in my painting.”

There are still several places available for artists to travel to Spain as part of the River Gallery School’s trip in April. The trip, which will be held from April 2 to 9, is nearing capacity, but several places still remain.

The group will spend 7 nights in a charming hotel in Andalucia, about an hour south of Seville in a perfect setting for artists, photographers and anyone who wants to experience the soul of Spanish culture. There will be excursions to Seville and the nearby town of Ronda.

The tour will include a week of making art and exploration of the Spanish countryside. Pleine air painting sessions will be led by Mary Giammarino, a frequent instructor at River Gallery School workshops and a well known local artist.

Guilford Center Stage continues into its second year with spring and fall productions of plays with strong connections to Guilford, continuing its mission to present place-based theater on the stage at Broad Brook Grange.  The new theater project debuted last fall with a production of the comedy, Tourists Accommodated, by Vermont author, Dorothy Canfield Fisher, who often visited Guilford.

A pair of one-acts by Guilford playwright Michael Nethercott opens the 2016 season in early June.  At the other end of the season, Charles W. Henry, who was born in Guilford in 1850, will be represented by his only known extant play, performed on the stage with the theater curtains which he painted around 1900.

Brattleboro, Vt. – Gallery Walk returns this Friday to liven up the downtown and a few satellite locations within a short drive of Main Street. There are 31 listed venues, many with meet-the-artist receptions.

Official Gallery Walk hours are 5:30 to 8:30, though most venues are open earlier and several remain open later into the evening. Patrons are encouraged to begin their artistic explorations a little early this Friday and stop on the way into town at The Marina Restaurant off Putney Road, where refreshments are offered to Walk patrons from 5 to 6:30. Coming from the west, consider stopping at C. X. Silver Gallery at 814 Western Ave., open 4 to 6:30.

Three local ceramic artists—Rob Cartelli, Heta Hilsdon, and Todd Wahlstrom—open their collective show on Friday, January 15 from 7-9 p.m. (snow date January 22) in the Michael S. Currier Center at The Putney School. The event is open to the public and admission is free.

Naomi Lindenfeld, the ceramics teacher at The Putney School, curated the show. Her vision led her to display the finely-crafted functional pottery on furniture rather than gallery pedestals. That way viewers can get much more of a sense of how one would live with the pots on a daily basis.

Library Exhibits at Brooks Memorial Library for January/February

SECOND FLOOR-CHILDREN’S BOOK ILLUSTRATORS CASE: lluminating Illustration: Picture Book Art Inspired by Illuminated Manuscripts, an exhibit borrowed from the Eric Carle Museum in Amherst, MA.

MEZZANINE-LOCAL HISTORY ROOM WINDOWS: left Abenaki artifacts collected locally; right Glass and ceramic vases from the Loud Collection.

MEZZANINE CASE and SECOND FLOOR ENTRYWAY: More objects from the Charles and Henrietta Loud Collection.  

Exhibits are accessible during regular library hours: Mon.-Wed. 10-9; Thur.-Fri. 10-6; & Sat. 10-5.

Light & Shadow: Cyanotypes and Drawings by Tom Fels will be on view at Mitchell • Giddings Fine Arts, in downtown Brattleboro, from January 7 to February 7, 2016.

A public opening for the exhibition will be held on Thursday, January 7, from 5-7 PM. An artist talk is scheduled for
Friday, January 22, at 7 PM.

Works on display include large cyanotype prints from the Arbor and Catalpa Series from 2011 to 2014, and a selection of smaller minimalist drawings from the Linea Series of 2014. Concurrent with this exhibition, several of Fels’s large drawings from his recent Classics series are included in the biennial Open Call show at the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center.

will be on view at Mitchell • Giddings Fine Arts, in downtown Brattleboro, from January 7 to February 7, 2016. Works on display include large cyanotype prints from the Arbor and Catalpa Series from 2011 to 2014, and a selection of smaller minimalist drawings from the Linea Series of 2014. Concurrent with this exhibition, several of Fels’s large drawings from his recent Classics series are included in the biennial Open Call show at the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center.

Tom Fels’ cyanotype series stem from his lengthy engagement with a single subject: a tree in his garden and its dappled shadows. These’ cyanotypes are cameraless photographs, popularly called “sun prints” or “shadow prints.” There is no negative; each is unique. The prints are life-sized, 1:1 scale renderings of their natural subject matter. The cyanotype is an early process of great simplicity and unique color (a deep blue, cyan). Typically, the method has been employed to produce silhouettes – of leaves, for example, as in the botanical illustrations of the pioneer British photographer Anna Atkins (1799-1871) – but the same process was also used to make photographic prints from negatives, as well as architectural blueprints.

Orchard Street Pottery will be offering its 4th annual Solstice and Seconds Sale this Sunday afternoon, December 20th, from 12 noon until 5pm in the studio and showroom at 658 Orchard Street, Brattleboro.  

Potter Walter Slowinski makes wood-fired, salt-glazed stoneware and porcelain teapots, pitchers, bowls, cups, mugs, vases and other ware.  This annual sale features deeply discounted prices on pieces with minor flaws or on discontinued designs.  

This small market and studio tour is the first of its kind in Vernon. Starting at the Vernon Town offices (at  567 Governor Hunt Rd, Vernon, VT 05354) with a marketplace of vendors offering handcrafted jewelry, paintings, quilts, jams and jellies, holiday cards, and baskets and continuing to just four open studios, this entire tour is easily visited in one afternoon. The open studios include a pottery studio, wreath maker, painter, and a furniture studio.

Bernie
the Crank

Cranky leftist.

Equality

Economic justice

Invest in America

Build homes and jobs

Stop militarism

Health care for all.

The Gallery at the Garden features a great new show for December: Coffee & Conversation — Stories of Homelessness, by Liz LaVorgna and Wyatt Andrews. Stories of Homelessness is a photography and video exhibit with a community art wall installation that brings together two cross-sections of our community: people experiencing homelessness and people who have stable housing.

The Gallery is located at the Robert H. Gibson River Garden, home of Strolling of the Heifers, at 157 Main Street, Brattleboro VT. Normal gallery hours are Monday-Friday 9 a.m.-5 p.m. (except during special events at the River Garden). 

On Thursday, December 3 from 5-7pm at Mitchell • Giddings Fine Arts, 183 Main Street, Brattleboro, the public is invited to an opening reception for two new solo exhibitions.Glass artist Josh Bernbaum, and painter and gallery co-owner Jim Giddings, will be showing new work in two separate solo exhibits. Both exhibits will be on display through January 3, 2016. A combined artist talk is scheduled for Friday, December 11 at 7pm.

Giddings’ work is as much about scraping off paint as it is applying it, “By selectively leaving some paint and scraping or rubbing away other areas, I can retrieve the white paper surface and a lightness of feeling not unlike a successful watercolor. Then I add more paint, then remove, then add…. I’m trying to have it both ways: depth and richness of oil paint and watercolor-like delicacy.”

I am pleased to invite you to my second collaborative reading with Tom Ragle, of Our Favorite Poems, this Thursday, November 19 at 7:00 pm at Guilford Community Church.  Admission is free, with donations covering the modest cost of our use of the church for this event.

Last May, we read a program of sonnets, and decided this time that we’d each read some of our favorite poems, and see what correlations emerge.  

Tom is reading a number of English poems, from the Elizabethan era to the early 20th century, including an interesting grouping of three different treatments of “Come live with me and be my love,” by Marlowe, Raleigh and Donne.  The Romantics are also represented, as well as poems of Americans Walt Whitman and Robert Frost.