ART EVENT
Spring Open Studio Weekend
May 27-28, 2017
The Vermont Crafts Council’s Spring Open Studio Weekend is a statewide celebration of the visual arts and creative process, offering visitors the opportunity to meet a wide variety of artists and craftspeople in their studios, and purchase their work. The 2017 Spring Open Studio Weekend takes place May 27-28.
The self-guided Open Studio tour features the work of glassblowers, jewelers, printmakers, potters, furniture makers, weavers, ironworkers, painters, sculptors, quilt makers and wood carvers. Many participating galleries host gallery talks and feature special exhibits in conjunction with this event.<
To learn more and to download guide maps, visit www.vermontcrafts.com. Look for yellow signs that guide visitors to open studios and galleries. Printed maps are available at participating studios and at visitor information centers on Vermont Interstate highways.
Here are some of our must-see places for Open Studio Weekend.
Artisans’ Gallery
Artisans’ Gallery (image above) is a cooperative art gallery filled with fine art and craft representing 120 established and emerging Vermont artists. Located on Bridge Street in the charming historic village of Waitsfield and home of “Great Eddy”, the oldest functioning covered bridge in the state. When visiting, check out art of Marilyn Ruseckas whose pastels are created with freedom of gesture and moody, dream-like compositions. With the Vermont landscape as a reference, rich dark and light contrast reveals energetic and colorful designs that encompass many genres from realism to abstract expressionism. Ruseckas is inspired by moving through the physical landscape, whether by bike or skis, collecting mental notes about color and shape to bring back to the studio. The fresh air and physical fitness help to bring ideas to life on the page. There is always something different to discover and, therefore, always something new at the easel.
20 Bridge Street, Waitsfield 05673
(802) 496-6256
www.vtartisansgallery.com
Ross Sheehan Studio
In downtown Vergennes, next to Bar Antidote, Ross Sheehan has returned to Vermont and reopened his studio. The story of the artist’s return appears in Vermont Art Guide #4. Visitors will find the artist’s painting, printmaking, collage, sculpture and mixed media art. Sheehan is hosting a Grand Opening during Open Studio Weekend, 5/27-28/17, 10AM-5PM.
Read more about Sheehan’s return to Vermont HERE.
37 Green Street, Vergennes 05491
(802) 870-7228
www.rosssheehanart.com
Gerald K Stoner Sculpture at Underhill Ironworks
This working artist studio and sculpture park displays over 50 welded steel sculptures on scenic River Road in Underhill. Stoner writes, “As a descendant of many generations of steelworkers, the process of working with the medium feels natural. The sculptures are constructed from steel yard remnants that are firstly composed with sketches, evolving intuitively in the studio. All sculptures are to be exhibited on their own, but I have found that displaying them as a group creates an atmosphere of personalities.” Gerald K Stoner Sculpture is one of six must see sculpture parks this summer featured in Vermont Art Guide #4.
Open year round, daily 10AM-5PM.
185 River Road, Underhill 05489 (look for the blue farmhouse and red barn)
(802) 324-3897
www.geraldkstoner.com
Lemon Fair Sculpture Park Opens for the Season
This outdoor sculpture park located at a private residence displays over twenty-five sculptures in a pastoral setting. Visitors will find large sculptures composed of steel, titanium, stone, kinetic and brightly painted sculptures from all over the United States sited along a mile-long mowed path.
Lemon Fair Sculpture Park is one of six must see sculpture parks this summer featured in Vermont Art Guide #4. READ MORE
There is a large horseshoe parking area. Located inside the red shed there is a map and informational booklet. Bring water, good walking shoes, insect repellent and sunscreen. The only facility is an outhouse. The park is open Saturday and Sunday, 9AM-4PM, 5/27-10/29.
4574 Route 74 East, Shoreham 05770
(802) 383-8161
www.lemonfairsculpturepark.com
Judith Reilly Gallery
Reilly’s gallery, located in her 200-year-old home, is open on Fridays, Saturdays, or by appointment starting Open Studio Weekend, 5/27/17. She is perhaps best known for her quilts, which has been her chosen medium since the 1980s. Original fabric artwork, artist-designed hooked rugs and pillows, prints, cards, and accessories are for sale and she’s on hand to discuss her art. Judith has had a remarkable creative journey, ask her about it.
24 Conant Square (Route 7), Brandon 05733
(802) 247-8421
www.judithreilly.com
Art on Main
This friendly, community supported, shop-like cooperative gallery has over 100 member artists and makers. Among the artists on view is Proctor-artist Kathryn Milillo (image above) whose oil paintings of barns and houses catch and play with light. She writes, “In my paintings, I hope to convey my gratitude – for that magic light on a late afternoon, for bright sunlight on a metal roof, for beguiling mists in the distance–for the ordinary and the extraordinary that dazzle my eyes, and bring joy to my life. Barns have become a personal gateway to interpret love and loss. Squinting at narrow doorways, light-filled cupolas and skylit windows, I’ve pondered the meaning of structures touching, almost touching, or wide apart, and discovered a personal symbolic language. A lonely sentinel on a mountaintop, or a small herd nestled in a valley–for me these barns are as spiritually beautiful as any cathedral.”
25 Main Street, Bristol 05443
(802) 453-4032
www.artonmain.net
Carving Studio and Sculpture Center
“The former company store of the Vermont Marble Company serves as the center for workshops, lectures, communal dinners and special events. A sculpture garden greets the first time visitor prior to their discovery of site-specific installations mingled among post-industrial ruins.” The gallery and workshop room shows wood and stone-carved sculpture as well as large photographs of the quarry. In Vermont Art Guide #2, Daphne Cybele Van Schaick profiled the Carving Studio in “The Schist and the Marble” read more HERE.
636 Marble Street, West Rutland 05777
(802) 438-2097
www.carvingstudio.org
Castleton Downtown Gallery
The gallery showcases Rutland-area and regional artists year-round. On view through 6/24/17, Elizabeth Michelman’s “Notes from Underground” is a cavern of hybrid art forms and synesthetic stimuli. In one room, walls of high-contrast, black-and-white works of ink-on-paper surround an interactive installation of steel I-beams. In another, the visitor must clamber around vinyl collages that riff on the colors and musical rhythms of Stuart Davis paintings. A disquieting video installation in a third room links the disintegration of language with that of democratic values. Trusting in the rational basis for emotional associations and intuitive leaps, Michelman proposes new connections that can orient us in the wilderness of our lives.
Center Street Alley, Rutland 05701
(802) 232-2396
www.castleton.edu/arts/art-galleries/
Brandon Artists Guild
Brandon has been called “the art and soul of Vermont” because of the work of a dynamic, vibrant, and varied collection of 50-plus artists belonging to the Brandon Artists Guild whose exhibit space is open to the public 7 days a week. No tour of Vermont’s galleries is complete without a visit to this very special community of artists whose reputations extend far beyond the borders of this very special state. On view during Open Studio Weekend, “Fish, Fowl & Flowers” presents floral photographs by Richard Conrad and wildlife woodcarving by William Barnard (image), as well as work by 50 craftspeople and artists.
7 Center Street, Brandon 05733
(802) 247-4956
brandonartistsguild.org
Vermont Artisan Designs
Vermont Artisan Designs, an award-winning gallery in downtown Brattleboro, offers fine art and American-made craft by more than 300 artists and craftspeople, including painting, photography, sculpture, glass, jewelry, pottery, wrought iron, fiber art, lamps, Judaica, kaleidoscopes, turned wooden salad bowls, and high-quality furniture, including the fabled Vermont folk rocker. In May, the gallery features photographs of circus performers by Jeffrey Lewis as a benefit for the New England Center for Circus Arts building fund.
106 Main Street, Brattleboro 05301
(802) 257-7044
www.vtart.com
Each issue of Vermont Art Guide has over a hundred places to see art around the state. The full-color, printed magazine has artist and venue profiles as well as articles and news about Vermont Art. Our goal is to document and share the state’s incredible art scene.