Press Release: Fox Hill in Poultney open call

Here's an unusual press release from a new gallery in south-west Vermont...

PRESS RELEASE: W.David Powell at Pine Street Art Works

Reception: Friday June 19th 5-7
Artist's Talk @ 6:30
Contact: Liza Cowan 863 8100

Pine street art works announces an exhibition of selected works of traditional and digital collage by Plattsburgh artist W. David Powell. Collage as an art form was introduced to the canon of Modern Art by such masters as Picasso, Braque and Kurt Schwitters. Using the classical ripping and gluing techniques as well as the contemporary technology of digital montage, Powell combines images from diverse sources including comic books, scientific treatises and advertising to present evocative and colorful works that have a hook.

The show features work from several bodies of work including The Progress Report and Between Soft Machines and Hard Science. A large collage on board, Everybody Loves McMoney from the Big Art Corpus displays Powell's acerbic take on history as presented by ripped and layered posters. Also included are new works from an homage to Dick Tracy and a series that references Martha Stewart.

The diversity of work presented here is not just about beauty; it has both meaning and wit. A common thread of cultural and social commentary runs through this collection of work and unites it, without resorting to polemics or bumper-sticker slogans.

The work will be on view until the end of June. There will be an artist's reception and presentation on Friday June 19th from 5 -7 pm. Artist's talk at 6:30

PRESS RELEASE: Rutland's Gallery at the Brick Box

The gallery at the Brick Box is pleased to announce the opening of an exhibit of paintings by Charles Parness. Parness' work has evolved into two forms, 20 inch square self-portraits and larger narrative works. Parness is the subject of all his paintings as he explores his humorous relation to the universe. As he puts it himself, "Who else should be the fool falling out of the boat in "Ship of Fools." Believing that more is better, one experiences more shapes, more actions and more colors which are meant to "reach out and grab, like a vandal."

Parness received his MFA from Pratt Institute in 1969 and has since showedextensively throughout the country including one person exhibits at Fischbach Gallery and G.W. Einstein Gallery in New York City. He has been reviewed in Art in America, Cover, New York Times and American Artist to name a few. Recently, he was a participant in the "As Others See Us" exhibit at the Brattleboro Museum (2008).

The Brick Box is open 11am - 6pm Thursday - Friday and Saturday 10am - 2pm, and during Paramount Theater performances.

For further information, please call Beth Miller at 235-2734, or Wendy Fannin at 235-2412.

PRESS RELEASE: Good Humor: Faux Fur Food Sculpture Mary Jo Krolewski

The Lazy Pear Gallery is proud to present “Good Humor: Faux Fur Sculpture” a show featuring the playful food-inspired sculpture of Mary Jo Krolewski. With her use of colorful faux fur, she creates ice cream, fruits, vegetables, and cakes that capture the joy food brings to our lives. “Good Humor” helps us to understand that good art can be fun.

The Lazy Pear Gallery is located at 154 Main Street, Montpelier, VT. It has off-street parking and is ADA accessible. Additional information is available from the gallery at (802) 223-7680 or at their website -- www.lazypear.com.

REVIEW: Artists Reflect on the Historical Collection of the Sullivan Museum

by Cully Renwick

Preserved artifacts give us a glimpse of people in other circumstances. In that glimpse we can see ourselves as well. By inviting eighteen artists to make modern art pieces referencing museum artifacts, the Sullivan Museum at Norwich University in Northfield has opened the window a little wider.



Each artist's work is displayed adjacent to the artifact to which it is related. M. Angelo Arnold’s Home Front references a nurse’s starched white hat. The gurney-like sculpture he built and fitted with stiff white canvas has the aspect of a lawn chair, not flat but in a shape that might hold a convalescent on the hospital grounds. But there’s something odd about how this construction is supported: behind and under the white canvas is a support made of crutch pieces, to which are attached two wheels, mounted at right angles to each other. Turning in circles is the best that could be expected of this contraption. The white lounge-chair aspect speaks of convalescence, but it will never function properly. According to Angelo, “My concept derives from a dreamscape of encompassing ideals of Norwich University, Nurse Hat and the Vietnam War.”

Riki Moss gives a surprising and poetic reading to a soldier’s steamer trunk, entitled Gone. The steamer trunk and the empty tree trunk face each other over a small gap between the bases on which the rest.

Janet Van Fleet’s waltz with the folkloric “short snorter” asked the art community to Put Your Mouth Where Your Money Is by writing on paper currency and, of course she involved the greatest possible number of people in the fun. The long strip of bills is suspended, hanging from the rafters, and it is more than a little bit difficult to see what is written on the bills at the top.

Marc Awodey uses a set of drafting tools as a bridge to a poignant story, World Trade Center – 1963, told in two letters, one from him, one from his dad. Marc’s father at age 29 was one of the twelve architects who designed the World Trade Center with Minoru Yamasaki. The design and destruction, he says, “became the bookends of my father’s career”. I’ll remember Marc’s piece a long time.

With our typewriters who art in heaven Alex Bottinelli makes you catch your breath at the pure Oriental beauty of her triptych, as stylish as the old Smith & Corona typewriter that she salutes. Arthur Shaller found a perfect artifact: the leather-encased unidentified apparatus (inscribed in French) he chooses to render as Handheld Oracular Device. It’s even more preposterous and more unexplained than the original. One my favorite pieces was Romy Schroeder’s Shuck & Jive, 2009 in which she cuts the mammy bench down to size and gives it good African knotting!

In speaking with the rather wonderful Museum Director who designed this project, Marilyn Solvay, I learned that the Sullivan is not a military museum, that she and her staff hire on in independent non-military status, and that the Sullivan has exhibits all the time that have nothing to do with the military, such as the Inuit art exhibit that just preceded this one. She also mentioned that about half of the students were not ROTC these days. Nonetheless, it’s relevant to this show that the artifacts were military-related and on military turf, and interesting that, quite logically, eleven (plus or minus) of the eighteen pieces expressed some degree of political tension, nine on the topics of war and the military, one speaking to civil liberties, and one to the artist’s personal preoccupation of questioning technology.

The level of art was occasionally wonderful. The staging of artifact and art together was thought provoking. I would like to have seen more attention given to the artists’ texts. For instance, Riki Moss’ poetically rendered text for her piece let us see the line of thinking from artifact to paper tree stump and to share what she saw in the combination; it was an important part of the viewing experience. In the end, what I enjoyed and admired most was the inventiveness and thought that it takes to wrangle abstract concepts from artifacts and, on top of that, to make art of it. I liked looking through that window and thinking about what I saw there.

PRESS RELEASE: David Smith at Claire's in Hardwick

Claire’s Restaurant in Hardwick, VT continues its exhibition program with an exhibit of paintings by Vermont artist David Smith. Smith’s oil paintings concern themselves with light and its interplay with the world. He chooses to work in a representational style because of the challenges he finds in pushing boundaries and looking in a alternative way. According to Smith,“The point of view in my approach is not as an observer of a scene, but as a participant.”

David Smith’s paintings will be on view at Claire’s from June 2 until August 4, 2009. There will be an artist’s reception on Monday, June 8, 2009 from 4:00 to 6:00. Claire’s Restaurant is located at 41 South Main Street, Hardwick, VT 05843. 802-472-7053.

Image: Poplars, 22"x32", oil on Linen

CARTOON: James Sturm featured

This month in the Utrecht Learning Center celebrates sequential art with renowned comic artist and co-founder of The Center for Cartoon Studies in White River Junction, James Sturm.

Utrecht has a brief interview with Sturm HERE and great examples of how he drafts and then completes his work.

PRESS RELEASE: John Cuomo at Gallery in the Field

Gallery in-the-Field presents Birds and Other Creatures, an exhibition of sculpture by John Cuomo, New Jersey-based artist who began creating his entrancing “creatures” of clay and tempera paint, at the age of 78. The son of Italian immigrants, Cuomo and his wife Rosa were the owners of an Italian Salumeria in North Bergen, New Jersey. Cuomo has exhibited his work in New York City at The Chelsea Studio Gallery and his birds have been bought by collectors worldwide.

The exhibit is on display at Gallery in-the-Field from June 6 – August 23, 2009. There will be an opening reception on Saturday, June 6 at 2pm.

Gallery in-the-Field is located at 685 Arnold District Road (just off Route 7), Brandon, VT 05733
Hours: Sat & Sun 1-5 and by appointment

WALKABOUT: Open Studio Weekend

by Cully Renwick

On Route 12 in the town of Northfield, five women share a beautiful big studio in the Gray Building, 168 North Main Street. At this site watercolors, pastels, oils, and basketry were all on display in "Classroom 2" on the first floor of the large gray school-house on the top of the hill. The artists are: Kathrena Ravenhorst-Adams (802 485-7288), Tamara Wright - Brook field Basketry ( 802 276-3173), Phyllis Higgins (802 485-7667), Annie Gould (802 485-9871), and Phyllis Greenway (802 485-8373) who also has a studio at 421 South Main Street in Montpelier.

Images: detail of watercolor of jewel weed by Kathrena Ravenhorst-Adams, and horse race by Phyllis Greenway.

WALKABOUT: Open Studio Weekend

by Cully Renwick

Jess Graham was among the exhibitors at River Arts in Morrisville for Open Studio weekend. Her web site, jessgrahamstudio.com, posts lots of artwork and information about her, including some photos of her garage studio. She's been noticed by VT Journal and Seven Days in 2006 and then featured in Eastcoast Snowboarding Magazine in 2008.

Here are some excerpts from her “mission” statement:

I paint to build a reference for gestures and movements. I reference split second sparks and lifetimes of ruminations. I want my scrawlings & scratchings to coax a little glimmer of a smile, a hope in the mundane, a joy for hot pink, a moment of pause to pick out individual cricket's songs. I believe in art that makes you happy. Not happy in a saccharine "have a nice day" sense, but the sort of happy that reaches-your-soul-makes-you-love-waking-up-in-the-morning. Because I believe that everybody yearns for art, needs art, sleeps better if they breathe art, I offer my art in a variety of forms. You can get it on a card for your grandma's mantle, an iron-on for your favorite hoodie, a colorlicious oil painting to keep you company in your mountain shack.

Painting, making, playing makes me feel peaceful because when I'm making art I'm communicating in energy and color and I'm making a mess and I'm acting on those, "oh what a pretty shiny object, what a crazy lit-from-within crabapple tree" impulses. Sometimes painting feels like singing really loud from my belly. Sometimes making art feels as content and quiet as waking up on a rainy day off with the one I love.

My art probably conveys layers of meaning, but generally I leave that up to you to decipher (you know, like a good story that gives you just enough clues to put the pieces together but not so many that your intelligence is insulted). When it comes to analyzing my art, I prefer not to confuse it with a lot of words. To me, making art is non-verbal, and so in trying to analyze its meaning and purpose I always come to the conclusion that I'm simply lucky to find a peace in the process of making it, and I hope some of that peace and energy and spontaneity and irreverence and downright joy translates to you. I hope you find my art satisfying like the crust of wood-fired bread, fun like dancing, silly like riding bikes in the dark, fluffy like snow. I hope it helps shake out the dust in your bodymindsoul like good beer and a long hard laugh.

ESSAY: Francis Colburn's "Memorial Piece"

(from the exhibit “Masters of Vermont: The Men” Bryan Memorial Gallery, Jeffersonville. Through July 12.)

by Lindsay Vezina

   "Memorial Piece" is Francis Colburn's evocative swirling, quasi-cubist painting - its foreground has a downcast semi-see through bride with a down turned bouquet. Behind her sits a melancholic young girl, to the right is a life-sized Magrittesque painting of a man leaning on a bicycle peering toward the bride. Is he a painted stand-in for a dead husband in transit? They all occupy a meadow whose ground and trees seem to be alive with psychic turmoil. Bare branches reach beyond a canopy of graduated green growth, the sky is framed by forbidding dark blue. 

  Colburn has an amalgam of influences such as Picasso, Rockwell Kent, Thomas Hart Benton, Magritte, Da Chirico as well as early Stuart Davis. Colburn has succeeded with great technique and psychological force to create a painting that works viscerally as well as compositionally! This is just one of other interesting work at this fine show at The Bryan Gallery in Jeffersonville.     

PRESS RELEASE: Into the Woods at Chandler Gallery

The Chandler Gallery in Randolph presents Into the Woods, a show in which 15 artists take a look at and use woods in a multi-media art show of painting, sculpture, glass, furniture, pottery and porcelain, aquatints and textiles, photography and altered books. New art curators Dian Parker and Laurie Sverdlove have chosen to display the work of artists Tom Batey, Jeanne Bisson, Ria Blaas, Anne Cady, Nick Defriez, Joan Feierabend, Mark Goodwin, Bunny Harvey, Judy Lampe, Ruth Mengedocht, John Parker, Jim Richmond, Gerard Rinaldi, Laurie Sverdlove and Bhakti Ziek. Into the Woods runs from June 6 through July 12, 2009,with an opening reception June 6 from 4 – 6 pm.

Gallery Hours: Thursdays 4-6 pm, Saturday and Sunday 1-3 pm, also during performance intermissions and by appointment 802-728-9878.

Images of work by Jeanne Bisson:

Birch goblets,hand formed porcelain 4" diameter x 6" height

"By the water's edge" hand formed twig.rock and riverbank porcelain 10" x 6"

Review: STAART GALLERY, May-June exhibition.

by Marc Awodey

Franklin county had a dearth of exhibition spaces for a long while, but it seems to be quickly making up for lost time. Now in its second year, STAART gallery (acronym for St. Albans Art) is a welcoming venue on Main street in the heart of bustling St. Albans. It’s one of two prominent co-op galleries in that neck of the woods - the other being Artists in Residence Gallery of Enosburg Falls - and both venues seem to be thriving. STAART Director Stina Plant is a photographer whose commercial studio is also on the premises, and the well organized walls display work in all media salon style. Various member artists are featured in revolving shows, and many come from the ranks of the St. Albans Artists Guild, of which Plant is also on the board of directors. In e-mail about the gallery she wrote “My goal is to not only have this space for the artists but also to expose the community to the visual arts.And by expose I mean

show them everything from traditionally executed landscapes to conceptually driven abstractions.”

The current exhibition includes work by five featured artists: Lisamarie Charlesworth, Chad Jenkins, Jen Kristel, Tinka Martel and Syracuse, N.Y. artist John Mannion. ”Fast Lane” by Charlesworth is a mixed media collage in which layers of imagery indicate layers of meaning. It’s one of her seven pieces in the exhibit. All are small scale, full of energy, and tightly composed.

In addition to the featured artists, all members have work on display. The black and white photographs by Clair Dunn are among the

highlights. Dunn was a finalist in the recent “Art of Action, Shaping Vermont’s Future” competition sponsored by the Vermont Arts Council. Many of her works have the mood of Edward Hopper paintings, as she often emphasizes stark contrasts of value in cityscape nocturnes.

STAART is a very egalitarian space that doesn’t jury, and takes no commissions either. Maybe the concept of a non-elitist, non-juried, unpretentions gallery could work in other hardscrabble Vermont towns also?

"5 a.m. in White River" By Clair Dunn

”Fast Lane” by Lisamarie Charlesworth

The Art of Vermont Exhibits

by Theodore Hoppe

"Art of Vermont" is a celebration the 170- year evolution of the Vermont State Art Collection, as well as 20 years of commissioned work created through the Art in State Buildings Program. In 1837, the Vermont Senate vote to purchase a painting of George Washington by artist George Gassner for the newly constructed statehouse. The State of Vermont has been collecting art ever since. With the creation of the Vermont Arts Council in 1964, the state art collection begin to expand beyond the walls of the capitol itself. Throughout the 70' and 80's the Arts Council continued to install art in public facilities like the Pavilion State Office Building. In 1988, the General Assembly passed the Art in State Buildings Act "in recognition of the need to encourage Vermont artists." As David Schutz, the State Curator, explains,"...it is (this) public art program which has allowed the placement of a wide assortment of works of art in facilities all over the state."The State collection includes the work of hundreds of artists, and can be found at twenty-eight state facilities across Vermont


The Department of Buildings & General Services, with the help of Paul Gruhler, working with the Vermont Arts Council, has created a show of paintings and photography from the collection by some of the best artists in Vermont. The first of four 2009 exhibits will be at the River Arts Center in Morrisville from May 8-July 5. The River Arts Center is proud to host a version of the "Art of Vermont" exhibition that features the works of many Lamoille Valley artists.

Another version of the tour travels to St. Michael's College in Colchester, from June 5, 2009 until August 8,2009 with an opening reception on June 5, 5-7 PM. Since the dates of these two exhibits overlap they will feature different works from the collection. There are shows planned for the Brattleboro Museum and at Catamount Arts in St. Johnsbury later in the year, with more dates planned for 2010.

There is also a beautiful glossy catalogue developed by Paul Gruhler, for "Art of Vermont" that presents a sampling of the State Art Collection. In it, David Schultz says, "Art helps define who we are as people. As we look back over the works that constitute the State Art Collection, we cannot help but be struck by the amazing messages that are conveyed about Vermont and its people."

Images:
Top: Alden Bryan, Cambridge, VT, c. 1955
Middle: Mickey Myers, Night Falls on Jericho Street, 2004-5
Bottom: Peter Miller, Fred Tuttle, 1987

LECTURE: Deidre Scherer at Bennington Center for the Arts

Red Hat 12” x 11”, thread on fabric, © Deidre Scherer

Quiet Valley Quilters Present A Deidre Scherer Lecture on Art and Healing with Thread on layered Fabric, Saturday, May 30, 2009 at 2 PM at Bennington Center for the Arts, 44 Gypsy Lane, Bennington, VT 05201

Scherer’s presentation moves through 30 years of work during which she pioneered “thread on fabric” as a fluid, intimate medium ideal for narrative expression. By drawing directly with scissors and sewing machine, her process becomes a way to listen, to give undivided attention and meditate. Book signing and reception to follow the lecture.

To make a reservation, or for further information contact Mary Kohler at (802)-442-7318.
Admission : $12.00. Sorry no credit cards. Tickets will be available at the door. This event is open to the public.

CALL: Circus! at Studio Place Arts (SPA)

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!

The circus is coming to SPA and we want you to get in on the act. The official deadline for proposals is past, and I have selected some fabulous work to exhibit, but I'm still looking for 2-D and 3-D work related to aerialists, clowns, animal acts, and sideshows of the weird and strange. Does not have to be realistic or traditional. All media welcome. Contact me by May 15 at janetvanfleet@fairpoint.net with images of your work

The exhibit will run from June 16 - July 25, 2009. Delivery of work will be scheduled for June 8 and 9.

CALL: Lake Champlain In Plein Air

This is the first call Vermont Art Zine has posted. We are experimenting with posting calls to artists for Vermont exhibits, and will evaluate whether we wish to continue with this practice.

2009 is the 400th Anniversary of the sighting of Lake Chaplain by Samuel de Champlain and artists been captivated by it right from the start. This summer marks a wonderful opportunity to celebrate its beauty and show the many ways that it can be expressed, by participating in a Plein Air Festival and Art Show in St. Albans, Vermont during the weekend of July 25 and 26.

This event will feature a chance for the public to meet and talk to artists while watching them at work. It will also provide an opportunity to view and purchase other artwork by the artists.

The Moose Lodge, on Lake Street in St. Albans, less than 5 miles from beautiful Lake Champlain, will be transformed into a gallery exhibiting lake-themed artwork by the participating artists. NVAA will handle sales during the exhibit and will retain a 10% commission, leaving artists free to paint anywhere in the area. While this will be billed as a Lake Champlain event and this theme should make up the majority of the artwork, there are numerous scenic spots in and around St. Albans and any plein air, local artwork will be accepted. There will be a map in the Moose Lodge for artists to show where they will be painting during the weekend to make it easy for their patrons to find them.

The Moose Lodge will be open from 10am to 5pm on Saturday  and Sunday, July 25 and 26. Additionally, there will be a reception on Sunday evening from 6pm to 9pm to exhibit works finished during this plein air event.

ELIGIBILITY: Open to all artists who do original two or three dimensional artwork with a Lake Champlain theme. All media accepted. Artwork to be exhibited should have been executed in the past three years with plein air work done the weekend of the event. This is a gallery type exhibition, not a booth show.

FEE: $45 fee will cover 6' wide x 8' high display panel for paintings in the Moose Lodge, publicity including postcards for artists to send to their special patrons and a Sunday night reception. Additionally, Norm Choiniere of Champlain Collections will give a discount on plein air frames to participating artists.

AWARDS: Peoples' Choice awards will be presented.

DELIVERY AND PICKUP: Paintings for display should be delivered Friday, July 24 between 6 and 8pm. Unsold paintings may be picked up Monday, July 27 between 6 and 8pm.

INSURANCE: There will be overnight security and all due care will be taken but neither the Moose Lodge nor any sponsoring group or individual will be liable for loss due to accident, theft or injury at the exhibit or in transit.

CONTACT INFO: To enter send check for $45 to Lake Champlain in Plein Air, c/o Martha Ohliger, 63 North Road, Fairfield, VT 05455.

Image: Lake Champlain at sunset, viewed from Grand Isle looking 5 miles west towards Plattsburgh, NY and Crab Island, by Atlant

REVIEW: Andy Potok Lecture - When Is it Art?

By Theodore Hoppe

The Kellogg Hubbard Library in Montpelier recently hosted a well attended lecture by artist and writer Andy Potok entitled, "When Is It Art?" While the presentation touched on the subject of 'What is art?' by looking at such works as "Fountain" by Marcel Duchamp, Potok's real intent was to explore the struggles and ordeals of the artist, and the various mental and physical deficiencies that can affect artists and therefore their art. Instead of providing answers to his question, Potok was content to refine the question to understand its implications: Do paintings produced by an artist afflicted with a drinking problem, drug addiction, mental and health issues and even blindness deserve to have an "asterisk" beside it? (like athletes on steriods) Potok focuses on the work of Willem De Kooning, who suffered from alcoholism for many years, and later, dementia. Because of the dementia, De Kooning needed increasing assistance to help him start each work. The assistants decided a painting was done when De Kooning ceased working on it for a time judged long enough.

When the issue of loss of vision came up the discussion became personal. Trained as an architect, then an artist, Potok painted and exhibited the U S and Europe until, in his early forties, a hereditary condition called retinitis pigmentosa began to steal his vision. He stopped working in the visual arts for many years, turning to writing about art and his disability.

Many great artists have experienced vision loss. Degas and Monet were in the midst of their careers as well when they became visually impaired. Monet became legally blind after developing cataracts. An increasing fuzziness and muddy colors are evident in his paintings. Degas began to lose his vision in his thirties. His visual impairments included amblyopia, corneal scarring, and ultimately, blindness in one eye.

Potok seemed to bristle at stories that credit divine intervention for what is actually determined adaptation. David Tineo, a Tunson, AZ muralist, struggled to paint after losing most of his central vision to macular degeneration. He had never tested the limits of his artistic abilities. He thought that his diminishing eyesight would be the catalyst, saying "I'm letting myself go, not being afraid that I may not one day see at all." Painting large 10x6 canvases using innovative ideas to overcome his "bad eye days", his work became freer and more expressive.

In 1993 Lisa Fittipaldi (see her painting, Inclination, at left) experienced the loss of her vision. She was depressed by having to relearn the basic tasks of life her, so her husband bought her a watercolor set and encouraged her to paint, even though she had no prior experience or training. To everyone’s amazement Fittipaldi began to paint beautiful paintings using what she refers to as her "mind's eye." How she paints is a mystery, even to Fittipaldi herself. The sales of her paintings now fund a foundation she has started to educate the public about blindness.

"What (they have) done that's really great is to learn and be innovative and to do what (they) need to do. It's not heroic. It is smart and it’s human and it's touching and its great," says Potak.

After a long hiatus from his painting, Potok again returned to his brushes and paints using the small bits of residual vision that remained. (Potok showed slides of the paintings he produced when his vision deteriorated.) Unsatisfied by the results and his experience, he stopped painting again, raising the question why? "It was not what I intended," was Potok's answer. What was gone was what he calls the "controlled-surprise" of creating. He is beginning to work in wire to create three dimensional "drawings in space."

Andy Potok's books include a memoir of the loss of his sight, Ordinary Daylight, as well as a novel about a boy growing up to be an artist in New York during the 1950's, My Life With Goya. For more information about blindness and the arts you can visit: www.artbeyondsight.org

SHORT: FLYNNDOG PREVIEW

The Flynndog gallery in Burlington's south end is a cavernous exhibition space on Flynn avenue, in a referbished industrial site. Curator, and architect Bren Alvarez always installs some of the most engaging shows of northern Vermont, and the current exhibition of paintings by Vinicio Ayala and Greg Mamczak is likely to be one of them. It's on view through June 30, and the opening is Friday May 8, 6-8 pm. There will also be an open house at the studios of Photographers Jeff Clarke and Karen Pike, 5- 9 pm at the Flynndog. In addition to exhibitions the Flynndog hosts poetry readings, that are usually attended by some of the area's best writers.

PRESS RELEASE: Works by Lee Garrison at the Vermont Supreme Court

A show of works by Lee Garrison entitled “Lee Garrison in Vermont: landscapes, flowers, ponds, portraits,” is on display at the VermontWorks by Lee Garrison at the Vermont Supreme CourtSupreme Court from May 1 through June 30.

After years of study at the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Arts at Oxford University, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and the Art Student’s League, Garrison pursued life as an artist based, primarily, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Her work has been featured in solo and group shows in New England and Europe.

Much of Garrison’s work over the years has been inspired by Chinese art, particularly the flower paintings, water landscapes and portraits of the Sung dynasty. Even her method of working, moving from long contemplation to quick execution is inspired by the work of Sung artists. Among the works in Garrison’s current show are a number from a period in her life when she spent much time painting on the shores of Lake Champlain, others reflect her more recent work, painting beside a pond in Colchester, Vermont.

The Supreme Court is open Monday through Thursday, from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and Friday from 12:30 to 4:30 p.m. The court building will be closed May 5, May 25 and June 5.

PRESS RELEASE: The AIA at the Vermont State House

Release: Immediate

Date: April 29, 2009

Contact: Tracy Martin, Assistant Curator

802-828-0749

tracy.martin@state.vt.us

The American Institute of Architects/ Vermont Chapter

2008 Design Awards Exhibition at the Vermont State House

Entries from the 2008 Design Award Competition of the American Institute of Architects/ Vermont Chapter will be featured in an exhibition at the Vermont State House cafeteria from May 5 through May 29.

The jury for the AIA competition, all members of the Boston Society of Architects, selected seven projects for awards. The three firms receiving Honor Awards were: Breadloaf Corporation of Middlebury, Pill-Maharam of Shelburne and Watershed Studio Architecture of White River Junction. Honorable mention went to Black River Design and Gossens Bachman, both of Montpelier. Banwell Architects of Lebanon, New Hampshire received a Citation, while Freeman, French, Freeman received a Fifty-Year Award.

Forty-one panels with images of all the entries, including the award-winning projects, will be on display through the month of May. The public is invited to an opening reception for the AIA Awards show on Tuesday, May 5, from 4 to 6 PM.

above: Edge Ledge House, Norwich, Vermont, Watershed Studio Architecture.

CARTOON: Why Artists Go Mad

By Robert Waldo Brunelle Jr.

CLICK ON CARTOON FOR A VIEW THAT YOU CAN ACTUALLY READ

PRESS RELEASE: Recent Paintings of Dan Gottsegen

Furchgott Sourdiffe Gallery of Shelburne, will be showing "Recent Paintings of Dan Gottsegen" May 1-June 9, 2009.

Gottsegen, who resides in Woodstock, VT, has a long history of working in and studying the natural environment that is strongly reflected in his paintings. Many of the recent oils, while retaining elements of realism in the landscape, are conceived as collages of juxtaposed images to better represent the physical and spiritual explorations that are involved in their conception.

"Much of my earlier painting emerged from my work for over a decade trapping, banding, measuring, and releasing hawks in California to study their migration patterns. My involvement in this study was born out of many strange and intense encounters with owls and hawks that I had been having for years. My work was also influenced by week or longer, completely solitary hikes that I took far into the wilderness of the high Sierra, traveling miles off marked trails, camping and painting alone above ten-thous

and feet (something I have always done).

... I am interested in the tension and duality between our romantic conceptions of nature and the reality of the potential environmental calamities we are facing. I seek to embody this tension in my work by the use of technology (video that I shoot) to derive image sources, or in recent work (the “Die Wanderungen” series) by juxtaposing images.

My recent work is inspired by my return to the Northeast after living for twenty years in Northern California. It varies from smaller (8 x 10 inches), more abstract pieces to larger (80 x 72 inches) paintings....

Working is for me a physical and even a spiritual exploration. It is improvisatory and often revelatory."

Furchgott Sourdiffe Gallery is located at 86 Falls Road,in Shelburne

Village. Hours are Tue-Fri 9:30-5:30, and Sat 10-5. For more information

please call Joan Furchgott, 802-985-3848, or go to fsgallery.com

ABOVE RIGHT: "Walking", oil, 38" x 38" 

ABOVE: "Season Suite", oil, 59" x 65"

PRESS RELEASE: Robert Brunelle at Red Square in May

There will be an opening at Red Square on Church St. in Burlington Friday, May 1, 5-8 p.m. for a solo exhibition by painter Robert Brunelle.

The opening will also be a book release party for a new book about the Northern Vermont Artists Association, published by Kasini House. The NVAA is the state's oldest arts organization, and Brunelle is its long-serving president.

REVIEW: Heidi Broner at Governor’s Office

By Janet Van Fleet

Heidi Broner’s exhibit, entitled AT WORK, shows men at work in a variety of blue collar jobs. The workers all have tools (shovels, rakes, floats, mallets) in these acrylic on canvas paintings, and appear in a misty atmosphere in which only the task itself seems in focus – an experience familiar to all hard workers, whatever their gender or collar color.

Two large paintings showing solitary workers on their knees are particularly strong, and ethereal at the same time. In Spreading Cement (40 x 60") the worker, kneeling on the edge of a crumbling cement island or continent, touches his float with just his fingertips. Brickwork (Sidewalk) shows a kneeling man on a raft of bricks, tamping them into place with a wooden mallet held with a similarly light touch. A blue shadow falls out the bottom of the painting like running water. Both of these paintings evoke the Jewish concept of Tikkun Olam, repairing the world.

Another of the six large canvases on display is Burn Site (40 x 30"), with two slender men shoveling the charred remains of a building into three white plastic buckets. There are small red flecks and reflections on the buckets, suggesting that the charcoal is still hot.

There are also mid-sized paintings (such as Asphalt 1, which has a much busier composition that makes the eye flit around and not quite find a place of interest or repose), as well as a number of tiny paintings (in the 4x5" range). Asphalt (Green) (8x8") features the Roadwork crew from the exhibit card, with the same elegiac golden background and square format.

Heidi Broner is a masterful painter who celebrates (in both this and other work, such as a previous series of paintings featuring a walk in the country with a dog) daily-ness and iconic human activities. Somehow she also manages to express, at the same time, a more elevated, otherworldly experience. This may the sign of a great artist.