Arts

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.

Collagraphs for Sculpture

After his recent sculpture shows at Brattleboro Museum and Helen Day Art Center (VT) and Governor’s Island (NY), Rodrigo Nava debuts at C.X. Silver Gallery his series of collagraph prints, a book accompanying this exhibition, and selected sculpture in new installations inside and out front of the gallery.  

Inspired by textures and shapes of vessels and other objects of his home and studio, Nava sees these collagraphs “as much a part of my oeuvre as the sculptures themselves” and values both their relic-like qualities of uncertainty and imperfection as remnants of his processes and experiences and the sculptural qualities of way the collagraph plate is prepared.

Asian Cultural Center of Vermont (ACCVT) presents Diwali New Year Festival of India, Nepal and Sri Lanka downtown at 118 Elliott Art Space, Brattleboro, VT (across from the Fire Station). All ages welcome.

Ras Garbha community dance to join in, learn (no prior experience needed), or watch. Trying on a sari. Henna decoration. Making paper Diwali lanterns. Community art: making a rangoli, an auspicious circular design usually done in sand but also (and in this case) done with flowers, pine cones, leaves, and dry beans and lentils (find some of these to bring to the festival – for flowers, bring ones that have a lot of petals like chrysanthemums – traditional flower petal colors are white, red and yellow.)

On Exhibit! at Brooks Memorial Library in November.

Mezzanine Walls above MAIN FLOOR: Brattleboro Camera Club, “Getting from A to B,” photographs illustrating how we move from one place to another in our daily lives.

SECOND FLOOR-CHILDREN’S BOOK ILLUSTRATORS CASE: Seasonal exhibit by Brattleboro illustrator John Steven Gurney, Over the River and Through the Woods and The Night Before Christmas.

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

Brattleboro — The River Gallery School in Brattleboro will hold an informational meeting on Thursday, November 12, for those interested in participating in its April art trip to Andalucia, Spain. The meeting will take place from 6:00-7:30 pm the art school at 32 Main Street in Brattleboro.

The River Gallery School tour will includes 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.

The trip will be held from April 2 to 9, 2016 and led by Cicely Carroll of Travel Fever Tours in Putney.

BRATTLEBORO, VT — The Brattleboro Museum & Art Center (BMAC) is now accepting submissions for the 2016 Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, a prestigious national recognition initiative for teenagers with exceptional artistic and literary talent. Vermont students in grades 7-12 are invited to submit art and writing entries in dozens of categories, including ceramics, digital art, painting, photography, poetry, humor, science fiction, personal essay/memoir, and more. The submission deadline is December 16, 2015. Students and teachers seeking guidelines or additional information are encouraged to visit www.brattleboromuseum.org or to contact Sarah Freeman at 802-257-0124, ext. 102 or sarah@brattleboromuseum.org.

The Gallery at the Garden in downtown Brattleboro features two new exhibits for the month of November: “The Golden Cage,” an exhibit of photographs and interviews focused on Vermont’s dairy farmers and migrant workers, and “The Beauty of Relaxation,” with creations by Maureen Mansfield.

The gallery is located at the Robert H. Gibson River Garden, home of Strolling of the Heifers, at 157 Main Street. The gallery will be open during Gallery Walk (Friday, November 6, 5:30-7:00 p.m.). Normal November hours will be Monday-Friday 9 a.m.-5 p.m. (except during special events at the River Garden).

On Thursday, November 5 from 5-7pm at Mitchell • Giddings Fine Arts, 183 Main Street, Brattleboro, the public isinvited to an opening reception for a solo exhibition of Petria Mitchell’s newest body of work. “Recent Work” will continue on exhibit through November 29th. An artist talk is scheduled for Sunday, November 15 from 4-6pm.

The gallery is especially pleased to present Mitchell’s exhibit, her first solo show since founding Mitchell • Giddings Fine Arts one year ago with her husband, co-owner, Jim Giddings.

37th Annual Putney Craft Tour Named Top Ten Vermont Winter Event and Approved as an Official Vermont Arts 2015 Event Thanksgiving Weekend — November 27, 28, 29 2015

PUTNEY, VT—For the second year in a row, the Vermont Chamber of Commerce has named the Annual Putney Craft Tour as a Top Ten Winter Event (2015/16). The tour has also been approved as a Vermont Arts Council 2015 event. Also of note, the tour is the oldest continuing craft studio tour in North America.

The Putney Craft Tour invites visitors to this craft rich area of Vermont to meet the 23 makers on this year’s tour including blacksmiths, glass blowers, potters, jewelers, weavers, woodworkers – even artisan cheesemakers Part of the fun is meandering through the beautiful Vermont countryside, following the map to find these prominent craftspeople and view the works where they are conceived and created. Putney and Saxtons River, VT. Visitors may start at The Gleanery Restaurant, 133 Main Street, Putney and/or at the Putney General Store for info, maps, and a preview exhibition of the artisans’ works. www.putneycrafts.com

This year to celebrate Teens Read Week, we will be offering a !

The fall zine workshop will be held on Tuesday, October 20^th from 4:45-6:45 at Brooks Memorial Library and will be led by local artist and cool creator Hannah Cummins. The zine workshop will be a great opportunity to create an awesome mini maga(ZINE) about something you care about. Share your artwork, thoughts, comics, favorite bands, favorite movies, or games in a mini maga(ZINE) at this
workshop. Celebrate this Teens Read Week, by creating something awesome at your library. Email or call (802)-254-5290 x110 to register.

On Thursday, October 15, from 5 – 7pm at Mitchell • Giddings Fine Arts, 183 Main Street, Brattleboro, the public is invited to an artist talk by Christine Triebert about her new photography series,”Through a Glass Dimly”.

“As a whole body of work, they suggest a view of seeing ourselves as ‘spiritual beings having a human experience’.” says Triebert of the twenty-one intimate images of individuals, many of whom will be familiar to area residents. The faces may be recognizable, but the subjects are shown in a novel way; simply, unadorned, and draped only with a crisp white sheet.

According to photographer, Christine Triebert, “The white sheet symbolizes the commonality of our human experience. It is reminiscent of the blanket we’re swaddled in at birth and the burial cloth we’re wrapped in at death.” Using the white sheet also brings us all to an equal place, “By donning the same covering, the portrait subjects are presented in a visually unified way, yet each person’s unique manifestation and expressiveness shines through. My intention with each image is to portray an essential quality of being of the individual self.”

BRATTLEBORO, VT — A new exhibit called “” opens at the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center (BMAC) on Friday, October 2 at 5:30 p.m. during Brattleboro’s monthly Gallery Walk. After the opening, starting at 7 p.m., Brattleboro bands . Admission is free all night.

 “” features 29 paintings by artist Kathleen Kolb of Middlebury, Vermont, accompanied by poems and other writings by poet Verandah Porche of Guilford, Vermont. Kolb’s paintings depict loggers and logging equipment, saw mills, wood chip power plants, and other scenes from the region’s vibrant forestry industry. Porche’s writings derive from interviews with loggers and foresters, as well as her own ruminations on the subject matter. Organized by BMAC in collaboration with Forest*Care; Vermont Department of Forests, Parks and Recreation; Vermont Land Trust; and Windham Regional Commission, the exhibit has been sponsored by Cersosimo Industries, Allard Lumber Co., East Mountain Forestry, and Vermont Woods Studios. Kolb and Porche are expected to attend the opening on October 2.

On Saturday, October 3, from 4 – 6 pm at Mitchell • Giddings Fine Arts, 183 Main Street, Brattleboro, the public isinvited to a book signing of Emily Mason’s new book, The Light in Spring.

Mitchell • Giddings Fine Arts is very pleased to host the first public book release of Emily Mason’s most recent monograph, The Light in Spring. The evening will include a one-night exhibit of Mason’s print work as well as a opportunity to meet the artist and have her sign your copy of the book!

On Thursday, October 1, from 5 – 7:30pm at Mitchell • Giddings Fine Arts, 183 Main Street, Brattleboro, the public is invited to an opening reception for Christine Triebert’s new solo exhibit,”Through a Glass Dimly“.

Mitchell • Giddings Fine Arts is pleased to introduce this unique portrait series including more than twenty subjectsmany of whom will be familiar to area residents. The faces may be recognizable, but the subjects are shown in a novel way; simply, unadorned, and draped only with a crisp white sheet. According to photographer, Christine Triebert, “The white sheet symbolizes the commonality of our human experience.

It is reminiscent of the blanket we’re swaddled in at birth and the burial cloth we’re wrapped in at death.” Using the white sheet also brings us all to an equal place, “By donning the same covering, the portrait subjects are presented in a visually unified way, yet each person’s unique manifestation and expressiveness shines through. My intention with each image is to portray an essential quality of being of the individual self. As a whole body of work, they suggest a view of seeing ourselves as ‘spiritual beings having a human experience’.”