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Sculpture Garden
May 6-October 22, 2006
Conversations with Artists
Saturday, May 6, 2006
12:30-1:30 p.m.
George Sherwood
Illustrated Talk
Opening Reception
May 6, 2006
2:00-4:00 p.m.
Exhibitors
George Sherwood
George Sherwood merges a diverse background in fine arts, performing arts
and engineering to create wind powered kinetic sculptures of reflective
stainless steel. "My sculpture explores the behavioral qualities
and dynamic relationships of objects in motion," says Sherwood. The
choreography of each piece is governed by a set of basic movements, facilitated
by an arrangement of rotating joints and aerodynamic surfaces. "Wind
speed and direction, shades of light, time of day, precipitation and seasonal
color interplay," says Sherwood, "to transform the qualities
of movement and light."
Anne Mimi Sammis
Renowned artist Anne Mimi Sammis’ work, which ranges in size from
one foot to twenty-two feet, is collected the world over. Her sculpture
He Has The Whole World In His Hands, which is on permanent exhibition
at Lambeth Palace, London, was commissioned by the Archbishop of Canterbury
to honor Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II’s Golden Jubilee. "The
works are memorials to peace, joy, and love rather than to war or tragedy,"
Sammis says. "It is my hope that my sculpture touches, inspires,
and validates the peace that is within each one of us."
Terry Findeisen
Trained in graphic arts, fine arts, surface pattern design and architecture,
she’s been a master fine arts printer, interior architect, carpenter,
a teacher of chair building and a builder of tree houses for children.
Each of those practices, she says, has been influenced by all of her training
and the places in which she grew up. To Findeisen, it is all inextricably
intertwined. Terry Findeisen was the 2004 Juror’s Choice Award for
Scupture winner in SVAC’s 48th Annual Fall Open Exhibition.
Gregory Smith
Gregory Smith has worked in wood, clay and bronze, but his media of choice
lately has been welded steel and, most recently, copper. His multi-award
winning sculptures are at once whimsical and entirely serious, reserved
yet resonant. His work, which ranges in size from table-top pieces to
large, outdoor installations, has been exhibited at the American Academy
of Arts and Letters in New York and included eight times in the annual
outdoor sculpture exhibit at Chesterwood, the estate of Daniel Chester
French, in Stockbridge, MA.
Jack Howard-Potter
Jack Howard-Potter tries to capture a movement in a medium that does not
move. Using steel, an inherently rigid material, Howard-Potter works to
convey a sense of fluid action in space. "My sculptures seek to convey
the motion of the body in extremely stressful and beautiful positions,"
he says, "…the moment that a dancer is at the peak of a jump,
the weightless split second before a body succumbs to gravity. I am describing
an ephemeral action in steel to convey this moment for eternity."
77th Annual Members’ Exhibition
May 6-June 6, 2006
Opening Reception
May 6, 2006
2:00-4:00 p.m.
The 77th Annual Members’ Exhibition, featuring 10 galleries of the
very highest quality paintings, sculpture, photography and mixed media
pieces, is the natural distillation of the casually assembled show that,
in 1922, was the de facto first exhibition of what is now The Southern
Vermont Arts Center.
That show, mounted in Dorset in 1922, featured the works of Edwin B. Child,
Francis Dixon, Wallace W. Fahnstock, John Lillie and Herbert Meyer, later
known as the Dorset Painters. The same group would produce another exhibition
in Manchester two years later and the rest, as you can see, is history.
Open only to Artist Members who either live in Vermont or within a 50
mile radius of the Arts Center, the Annual Members’ show features
more than 200 works from some of the finest artists in the North East.
Historically, inclusion in the Annual Members’ Exhibition was considered
so potentially beneficial to an artist’s career that more than one
chose to relocate to the area.
June Solo Exhibitions
June 10-July 11, 2006
Conversations with Artists
Saturday, June 10, 2006
12:30-1:30 p.m.
Leslie Parke, Brian Sweetland & Harry Rich
A Panel Discussion
Opening Reception
Saturday, June 10, 2006
2:00-4:00 p.m.
Exhibitors
Renee Bouchard
Renee Bouchard’s paintings are landscapes of her own invention.
They house intense emotion softened by the boundary between the interior
and the exterior; their imagery offers a glimpse into an inner dialogue
with her intuitive imagination and her perception/experience. "In
Three Clouds and Blue Sky," Bouchard says, "the clouds are like
exhales coming from a head resting in archetypically shaped hills."
Bouchard is considered by many to be at a "tipping point" of
her career, having recently garnered honors from curators at the Phillips
Collection, the Boise Museum of Art, the Center for Maine Contemporary
Art, and UMASS Amherst’s New York New England New Talent and is
a recipient of the Robert Rauschenberg’s Power of Art Grant. She
is represented by Wren Gallery in Key West, FL.
Leslie Parke
While traditional representational paintings tend to act as "windows
on the world," Leslie Parke’s paintings use realistic images
to exert contemporary abstract principles, such as monumental scale, frontality
and a gesture that asserts the surface of a painting. The paintings may
depict flowers, water, trees and branches, but they are about shapes,
colors, space and light. "That being said," Parke says, "By
working with nature I am able to reintroduce into my work something that
is not possible in a purely abstract painting, and that is the quality
of light and place at a particular moment." The recipient of numerous
national and international awards, Ms Parke’s works have appeared
in more than fifty solo, group and juried shows the world over and hang
in the collections of nearly seventy museums and corporations.
Miles Hyman
Miles Hyman has been working in the fine arts professionally since 1987.
He trained in painting and printmaking at Buxton School and Wesleyan University
before moving to Paris, France in 1985 where he studied drawing at the
Paris École des Beaux-Arts under Henri Clement. Hyman has worked
extensively in editorial illustration for such clients as Chronicle Books,
Viking, Simon & Schuster and The New Yorker magazine. He has created
numerous children’s books and hundreds of book covers for publishers
around the world and has, since 2001, illustrated the entire product line
of Vermont’s own Green Mountain Coffee Roasters. Hyman has taught
courses in illustration at the Paris Parsons School of Design and UCLA-Extension.
He continues to show his work regularly throughout Europe and the United
States, including exhibits at the Galerie Medicis in Paris, the Galeria
Maeght in Barcelona and the Galerie Michael in Beverly Hills.
Brian Sweetland
In 1977, three years after Brian Sweetland’s first foray into oil
painting, he met the prominent Vermont painter – and founding member
and past president of SVAC – Dean Fausett, who encouraged Sweetland
to continue his studies. A grant from The Society for the Preservation
of Traditional Values in the Fine Arts enabled Sweetland to move from
his then home in Washington, DC, to Vermont to apprentice with Fausett.
His first major exhibition, in Virginia, came three years later and he
has since shown in venues up and down the East Coast including Boston’s
Copley Society and St. Botolph’s Club. Brian Sweetland still lives
and paints full time in southern Vermont. His approach to his art is succinct:
"There are things, places and arrangements that I think are beautiful,
so I try to paint them." he says. "Paint it while the weather
permits, and before it is sold, bulldozed, auctioned off or privatized."
Carolyn Droge
From her early childhood, Carolyn Droge has loved animals and has made
them the subjects of her artwork. During fifteen years of working for
a veterinarian, she was exposed to numerous subjects for her animal portraits;
she also earned notoriety as an accomplished wildlife artist. Her painting
ability was further developed during her painting restoration work with
an art conservator. This extensive and meticulous work honed her style
as an essentially realistic painter, and she soon earned recognition as
an accomplished wildlife artist. In 2001 Droge moved to rural Vermont,
where she finds endless animal subjects; as evidenced by the body of her
work, she takes particular delight in painting cows. Her ability to depict
each animal’s individuality lends intimacy to her portraits. "Each
painting begins with a study of the subject’s eyes," she says.
"I believe the eyes capture the true personality of the animal."
Lali
"I sculpt stone with hand tools because they allow me to hear the
voice of the stone," says Lali. "I may have in mind something
that I want to carve in a certain way, but the stone may have in mind
something slightly different. It is important to listen to the stone."
This is why she carves directly on the stone – establishing a dialogue
with the stone, as it were – without first making clay models or
drawings. When Lali begins a sculpture – a difficult time requiring
strong muscles, blind faith and much humility – there are days when,
at the end of three or four hours of steady carving, she can barely tell
that she’s made a difference. When the figure at last begins to
emerge (what Lali calls the "Pygmalion moment") her relationship
to it becomes deeper by virtue of the hours spent working towards that
point.
Elizabeth Allen
A graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design and a student of figures
and still life at the Art Students League of New York, Elizabeth Allen
moved to Vermont and began her study of landscape painting. She has recently
been painting the northern Vermont area en plein air, preferring to catch
the kind of light and color that only the outdoor experience can provide.
She feels that painting outside during all the seasons creates an intimacy
with the landscape that can’t be matched in the studio. In creating
her still lifes, she arranges her subjects in a way that accentuates light.
She strives to paint the unexpected colors, and the light and air created
by these relationships, rather than a hard-edged representation. Her landscapes
and still lifes are both featured in books published by International
Artist. She shows in galleries throughout Vermont.
Cynthia Rosen
Cynthia Rosen has recently returned to painting fulltime after taking
a respite to raise her children and teach. Though years have passed, her
passion for color, light and movement have not flagged nor has her desire
to paint that which she perceives to be reminiscent of more traditional
aesthetics. "In this series," Rosen says, "you will see
my fascination with and exploration of these elements while providing
the viewer an opportunity to engage in visual play." Using plant
life and landscape as her subject matters, Rosen is both playing and inviting
you to engage as well. "Some of my pieces present the full view,
the more coherent image of that which we see in its totality. Other pieces
present the viewer solely with energy and movement, portraying nature’s
order in the guise of its visible chaos and that which one sees with further
inspection."
Ian Baer Marion
In an effort to allow the mind to play, in some works, Ian Baer Marion
has juxtaposed apparently dissimilar images, or selections of images,
each possessing their own presence but placed as part of a greater whole.
In doing so, he is questioning and manipulating the traditional or accepted
concept of "the whole." For Marion, it is up to the viewer to
be aware of the surface connections their mind makes in the process of
ordering the pieces and creating their own concept of the whole. "Ultimately,"
says Marion, "any purchaser of these pieces will have the power to
use the sections to create their own ‘whole’ with the ability
to totally separate and rearrange the units. It is all part of the mind
game and the fun of seeing and enjoying color, movement and, at times,
light, and making order out of the chaos and beauty found in nature."
July Solo Exhibitions
July 15-August 15, 2006
Conversations with Artists
Saturday, July 15, 2006
12:30-1:30 p.m.
Robert K. Carsten, Les Jorgensen & Richard Erdman
A Panel Discussion
Opening Reception
Saturday, July 15, 2006
2:00-4:00 p.m.
Exhibitors
Georgine MacGarvey-Holman
"I paint because it is the only thing I have ever been any good
at and because it’s satisfying work," says Dorset, Vermont
artist, Georgine MacGarvey-Holman. Though she loves to look at art,
she’s reluctant to identify any particular painter as a source
for her inspiration. "I take my inspiration from Nature,"
she says. "While I also enjoy painting portraits, the light and
color of the landscape are my favorite subjects." Working from
photographs taken in Dorset and from her travels, the artist looks for
changing light and atmospheres that last only for a few moments. To
MacGarvey-Holman, painting, if done well, is essentially an intuitive
process. "So," MacGarvey-Holman says, "if I can quiet
my brain and discipline myself to paint, sometimes something worthwhile
emerges."
Malcolm DuBois
A predominately self-taught artist, Malcolm DuBois moved to Colorado
in 1993 and began intensive studies of various disciplines with master
painters, including still life with David Leffel, landscapes with Michael
Lynch, and figurative/portrait work under Mark Daily. "Each painting
begins with a concept," says DuBois, "something I wish to
convey, regardless of the subject." This concept may be the soft
light flowing over a figure, a strong light illuminating a boat or tree,
or the natural rhythms created by tree lines on a distant hillside.
Malcolm DuBois’ work is known for intimate everyday portrayals
that understate a deep appreciation for the artistic process and the
connection with the viewer that is created. Since 1995, he’s exhibited
in eleven states in venues spread between Marshall, Texas and South
Hampton, New York. He now makes his home in Burlington, Vermont with
his wife, and their two children.
Robert K. Carsten, PSA
Robert Carsten says that his art has come to be more about painting
the idea of a thing than painting the literal thing itself. "I
am interested in descriptive reality only to the extent that it serves
my purpose as a hook to draw the viewer to a deeper meaning within my
subject," says Carsten. "My art reveals my ever-increasing
interest in the dynamic tension between surface and depth. The lure
of the sensual nature of pastel, coupled with the sometimes subtle,
other times dynamic, tensions that are created when these painterly
qualities visually interact with those of the surface of the object,
allows me to explore my subject from the reference point of an inner
logic rather than an outer reality." Robert Carsten is a signature
member of the Pastel Society of America, the Academic Artists Association,
the Copley Society of Art, the Vermont Pastel Society and others.
Les Jorgensen
Les Jorgensen’s current exhibit, "Invisible Landscapes,"
is a series of black and white photographs encompassing Vermont, Scotland,
Iowa and New York. These photographs are "invisible" in that
they incorporate the infrared spectrum of light not visible to the eye.
Using high-resolution digital cameras especially equipped to capture
an extended range of the light spectrum, he blends the visible with
the invisible landscape producing surprising and dreamlike results.
"I became aware that the family farm had been taken over by corporate
farming operations," Jorgensen states. "As I worked with landscapes
I felt there was a dreamlike affinity between this invisible light and
a farm life with all its buildings that had disappeared or were falling
down." Trained in traditional landscape photography and a graduate
of Brook’s Institute of Photography, Jorgensen’s work has
appeared on the covers of Time, Fortune, New York Times Magazine, Forbes,
Business Week and Gourmet, among other major publications.
Richard Erdman
Richard Erdman creates abstract sculpture of both intimate and monumental
scale in stone and bronze from his studios in Williston, VT and Carrara,
Italy. His art is known for its vitality, energy, and seemingly light
buoyant motion, as if defying the material from which it is formed.
The power and life the artist bestows in his work, both daring and subtle,
conveys passion and strength, deeply engaging the viewer. His inspiration
is multi-faceted as the artist draws from both his reverence for nature
and the connectedness of the human spirit. Explorations of the deepest
life of the stone and the attempt to transcend it have led him to produce
seemingly effortless yet extraordinary works that can be found in many
distinguished public and private collections in over 40 countries worldwide,
including the PepsiCo Sculpture Gardens in New York, the Minneapolis
Institute of Art and Princeton University.
Charles C. Gruppé
Charles C. Gruppé comes from one of America’s most respected
families of artists. His grandfather, Charles Paul Gruppé (1860-1940),
studied and painted in Europe until moving to Rochester, New York. His
uncles, sculptor Karl (1893-1982) and painter Emile (1896-1978) were
successful and widely recognized for their work. Charles’s father
Paulo Gruppé was a gifted cellist. Gruppé studied at Yale
University and at Columbia, as well as at the National University of
Mexico. He earned a Masters of Fine Art from Columbia University while
on a fellowship there and was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship Grant to
study in Italy, where he received an Italian Government Award. His work
is collected worldwide. Gruppé, who is listed in Who’s
Who in American Art, paints in what he calls a controlled, impressionistic
style. "I try to paint in an abbreviated style," he says,
"…quickly – inferring rather than stating completely
the subject."
Virginia McNeice
Virginia McNeice studied painting and drawing with David Miller and
Peter Skate at Skidmore College and has since had a number of solo exhibitions
in and around Saratoga Springs, New York. Richly toned and evocative
– strong colors and contrasts of shadows and sun create her paintings’
moods – McNeice’s pastels and oils have garnered recognition
and won awards. "I am continually exploring landscapes around my
house in upstate New York… working outdoors in pastels and oil
and in the studio from sketches quickly made, sketches that catch the
light of the moment." McNeice says. "Often I will paint many
variations of the same scene to explore the variations as the day passes…
I love the challenge of trying to capture a transient moment on paper
or canvas before the light has changed and the moment is gone forever."
August Solo Exhibitions
August 19-September 17, 2006
Conversations with Artists
Saturday, August 19, 2006
12:30-1:30 p.m.
Pam Marron, Arthur Jones & Ellen Chambers
A Panel Discussion
Opening Reception
Saturday, August 19, 2006
2:00-4:00 p.m.
Exhibitors
Pam Marron
"I am not good at writing down my thoughts," says Pam Marron.
"Maybe that is why I paint. Sometimes I’ve used my brushwork
as a vocabulary, different strokes – different words. And hopefully,
like a writer, they build up and grow in richness and depth over the
years. Using an undisciplined vocabulary I am able to work subjects
in a wide range. As in this show of my recent work, my approach is simple.
I see something and wonder how it would look as a painting. It’s
the process of wondering that is important to me. Because that is how
I see it in my mind’s eye. If I don’t see it, I can’t
paint it. Sometimes it is easy, sometimes it is hard, sometimes it just
doesn’t work. But it is the curiosity that is important. To live
is to be curious, to paint is to live."
Tom Rickman
UK artist Tom Rickman, who makes his home on the southern tip of England,
in Cornwall, is an artist with a penchant for wide open spaces. "I
like being in big landscapes, the light, atmosphere and character of
a place enable my ideas to breathe." says Rickman. These works
have a romantic ephemeral idea behind them, yet once the artist is in
the vast open space of nature, the physicality of the land can be most
inspiring and sometimes overwhelming. "Entering into these subjects
as a painter, a relationship is found," he says. "The large
spaces become intimate with symbol and the landscape becomes part of
my personal language." Mr. Rickman has shown throughout the United
Kingdom, Italy and the US. Six of his paintings were commissioned for
the luxury liner, Queen Mary 2. A book of Rickman’s work, On the
Edge of Twilight, was published in 2002.
Michael Jay
Michael Jay was born in Wales and raised in a small town on the coast
of the Vale of Glamorgan. The dramatic geology of the local coastline
and the fabled Welsh mountains had an early influence on Jay, inspiring
him to take a degree in Earth Science at the University of London. An
all-consuming interest in rock climbing, mountaineering and photography
led to extensive travels and set the scene for a varied, adventurous
career, combining business with pleasure in a restless, never-stand-still
lifestyle. The wide open landscapes of America, particularly the American
west, have exerted a huge influence on Jay since his first visit to
the mountains of California in 1978. Now, after 60 visits to 43 states,
he’s taking time out to exhibit some of the fruits of his travels
in the form of photographs of some of the "wide open spaces"
he’s visited or lived in.
Christy Bonneau
Christy Bonneau describes her medium to large-scale oils as "abstract,
emotional landscapes infused with the feeling of what it means to be
innately human." "Within the fields of color the human spirit
dances with the rhythm of life," says Bonneau. Each painting causes
pause, draws the viewer into its center and demands an emotive response.
She also integrates her oils with printmaking, intimate etchings, transfers
and collages for a different multi-media expression. Crediting Helen
Frankenthaler and Peter Beard for teaching her what it means to be a
true artist, Christy Bonneau has discovered the synergy of the professional
artist – discipline and freedom. Her paintings have been favorably
compared to those of Hans Hofmann and are quickly becoming collectibles.
Patti Zeigler
A graduate of the Parson’s School of Design, Patti Zeigler is
a painter of still life whose approach to her craft is disciplined and
skillful, usually painting the same subject matter time and again, refining
her depictions until she finds a representation she agrees with. In
her work, Zeigler utilizes everyday objects to create colorful realistic
still life paintings. Many layers of vibrant color are applied to a
smooth panel to achieve a rich and radiant surface. "I strive to
paint the essential beauty inherent in every object as honestly as possible
while enjoying the challenge of making a three dimensional object look
realistic with a two dimensional medium. Brushstrokes, shadow, space
and design are the critical elements used to capture the form of an
object and express it in terms of paint." Her work is represented
in several galleries throughout the northeast.
Howard Kalish
Employing his own technique – pigmented cement over a welded steel
armature, or bronze using a polychromatic patina – painter-turned-sculptor
Howard Kalish creates dynamic and colorfully abstract pieces, from the
table-sized to fifteen-footers that seem to alter their appearance almost
at will. "Most of the sculptures I make are open," says Kalish.
"They can be seen through, and the juxtaposition of the forms against
each other, and the background, changes as one walks around them. The
esthetic basis of my work," he explains, "is growth and structure,
the various ways forms are put together and become themselves, in nature
and in the way the mind perceives it." He doesn’t try to
render these things by picturing or copying models such as organic or
inorganic forms, he explains, but rather he follows analogous principles
in the making of the sculpture to the way forms are made in the universe.
Wendy Soliday
Wendy Soliday’s pastel landscape paintings capture a representational
and yet poetic essence of the Vermont and Adirondack countryside. Her
work celebrates the beauty of the woods, streams, mountains, lakes and
fields. She prefers to paint en plein air and can often be seen with
her easel and supplies, paddling out on a lake in the early morning
or shivering in a field at the end of the day. "I have to keep
my shades down if I want to sleep past dawn," she says. "The
light awakens some sort of craving in me and I have to paint. This world
out there is just too stunning to ignore." Wendy has received the
Northern Vermont Art Association Award for Best Pastel and has exhibited
in numerous national and international shows. She is presently the President
of the Vermont Pastel Society.
The Arthur Jones Collection
Long-time Artist Member of the Southern Vermont Arts Center, Arthur
Jones presents an exhibition of his private collection, consisting of
some of his own early work which has never before been shown, along
with a collection of work by noted artists all of whom were seminal
members of the Southern Vermont Artists (the forerunner of the Southern
Vermont Arts Center), including Luigi Lucioni, Herbert Meyer, Anne Meyer,
Cecil Larson, John Lillie, Dean Fausett, James Montague, Frank Maglby,
David Humphries, Beatrice Jackson, Gene Pelham, Nicholas Comito, Ada
Davis, Stuart Eldridge and others.
50th National Fall Open Exhibition
September 23-October 29, 2006
Conversations with Artists
Saturday, September 23, 2006
12:30-1:30 p.m.
Ben Frank Moss III, Valerie B. Hird, George Sherwood & Anne Mimi
Sammis
Painters & Sculptors:
A Panel Discussion
Opening Reception
Saturday, September 23, 2006
2:00-4:00 p.m.
Exhibitors
Juried artists from across the United States
Participation in this prestigious, juried exhibition is solicited nationally
to attract the very finest artists from outside the Arts Center’s
artist membership as well as from within. Hundreds of applications from
across the nation are winnowed down to approximately 200 works that
will include paintings, sculpture, photography and mixed media. Three
Juror’s Choice Awards will be given to those artists whose works
display outstanding artistic merit and excellence.
The 2006 Jurors are:
Valerie B. Hird is an artist who lives and works in Vermont,
where she is currently on the Adjunct Faculty of Saint Michaels College,
Colchester, Vermont and Community College of Vermont in Burlington.
An extensive traveler, her work is currently represented by the Nohra
Haime Gallery, NYC, the Hunter Kirkland Contemporary Gallery, Santa
Fe, New Mexico and Lucky Street Gallery, Key West, Florida.
Vivian Patterson is Curator of Collections at Williams
College Museum of Art, and has been a visiting lecturer in the Williams
College Department of Art and adjunct instructor and independent project
sponsor in the Williams College Graduate Program in the History of Art
since 1987. Her recent projects include the collaboration with the Tang
Museum, Skidmore College, Saratoga, NY, on an exhibition and catalogue
featuring the work of contemporary artist Kara Walker.
Ben Frank Moss III is an academician in the National
Academy of Design, has exhibited extensively in one-person and group
exhibitions nationally and internationally, and is currently the George
Frederick Jewett Professor of Studio Art at Dartmouth College, Hanover,
NH.
Juried by internationally known sculptor John Kemp Lee, the awards for
the 49th National Fall Open, in 2005, went to Karin DiChiara for her
black and white photograph, Towers 11. Two oil painters were given the
other two awards. Pattie Lipman received an award for her oil painting,
Portrait of Jill, and Brian Kiernan was given an award for his oil painting,
View Toward Mt. Mansfield.
The Jurors’ Choice Award winners for the 50th National Fall Open
will be announced the Friday following the show’s opening.
November Solo Exhibitions
November 4-December 5, 2006
Opening Reception
Saturday, November 4, 2006
2:00-4:00 p.m.
Mark Tougias
A self-taught painter, Mark Tougias has been painting and studying landscapes
since he was eight years old. "The landscape, with its ever-changing
light, colors and arrangements echoes every human emotion and sentiment,"
says Tougias. To him, the landscape is the mirror of human moods and
mysteries. "Using the landscape as a vehicle, I wish to paint those
moods and mysteries. Recognizable, specific locations are not my first
concern. Capturing a bit of the soul and spirit of a general locale,
an hour of the day, a season… that’s the ideal for me."
Through brushwork, tonal qualities, light and composition, Tougias seeks
the poetic and, if he’s very lucky, the spiritual. "In most
cases it is not important where that tree, hill or field is. What’s
important, he says, is the answer to the question "Does the painter
transcend the specifics and speak to the viewer?"
Marne Rizika
I have been drawing the Big Dig in Boston and painting images of farm
equipment for many years now, inspired by the Precisionists of the 1930’s
and 1940’s, and artworks from the Works Progress Administration,
Russian Constructivists, Futurists and Cubists. While I am also a painter
of still lifes, landscapes and mechanical objects – such as tractors
and, more recently, Harley Davidson Motorcycles – I feel the landscape
of the Central Artery/Tunnel Project is best expressed in black and
white. The distorted sense of scale and perspective in my work developed
out of my experience of landscape and architecture, natural and human
made: the immense space of the Grand Canyon; the sheer cliffs of Canyon
de Chelly; trucks and equipment disappearing over rolling hills or emerging
from the horizon of North Dakota farmscapes seems immeasurable.
Skye Forest
A long distance swimmer, Skye Forest surrounds herself with the ephemeral
skies and tranquil water she often depicts in her paintings. "The
sky is an ever changing gallery universally available to us all,"
says Forest. She is enchanted with the natural mystery and majesty of
unpopulated landscapes. Forest’s simplified interpretations of
the beauty of nature, though reminiscent of specific places, are dreamlike
images that invite the viewer to contemplate. Whether the images are
real or surreal – her skyscapes and landscapes are personal interpretations
of nature once seen or imagined – her paintings have been described
as "exquisitely luminous" and "radiantly beautiful."
Whatever her subject, Forest constantly rejoices in the radiance and
brilliant colors of pastels. Since beginning painting in 2000, she has
participated in numerous regional, national and international exhibits,
winning several awards. Her work will be included in the book L’Art
du Pastel, to be published in France in 2006.
Natalie Melbardis
"I don’t like to speak for my work," says collage artist,
Natalie Melbardis. "I hope my work speaks for itself and engages
the viewer both by eye and by thought." Speaking to the process,
she notes that she is currently working on two parallel series of works.
"The dual track enriches my work. One makes me think more clearly
about the other." The first series, "Riddles," is made
up of black and white newspaper cutouts. With "Riddles," first
there comes the adventure of searching for images that catch her eye;
she then moves the pieces around until something clicks and she knows
that the collage is finished. The other series, "Quilts,"
a joyously free collection of colors, patterns and shapes, gives Melbardis
the option of working large. "I color the rice paper, tear it and
then assemble it into a random, quilt-like pattern that I see as a dance
of happiness."
Wayne Nobushi T. Fuji’i
Born in post WW II Tokyo, Wayne Nobushi T. Fuji’i received a Bachelor
of Architecture degree from the University of California Berkeley, where
he also studied photography with William Garnett. While still a student
at UC, Fuji’i joined forces with Yukio Futagawa, a renowned photographer
and then fledgling publisher of the now critically acclaimed GA (Global
Architecture) series of books and periodicals. From there, Fuji’i
embarked on a 30-year career in photo-journalism specializing in architecture
and landscape architecture. His work, long admired for its skillful
use of available light, has been featured extensively in architectural
publications worldwide. In his current work, the Exquisite Vermont series
– Fuji’i has lived in southern Vermont since 1981 –
he takes the notion of available light still further and captures in
his images the luminosity and translucency, evoked by the ever-changing
light of the distinct seasons, that is inherent in the rural landscape
and life in Vermont.
Lauren Silver
"I hope to return to the primary nature of human expression and
to my personal sense of abstract form through the elegance and sophistication
of organic structures. Organic structures speak to me with great expressive
force. I would like my pieces to instill a personal response, yet harbor
universal issues that transcend cultural climates and specific times,
so that they may become objects of contemplation, initiate new thoughts
and offer perspective," says Lauren Silver. Each piece relates
to and anticipates the piece yet to come. They are in continuous dialogue,
one being the conduit for the expression and refinement of the other.
"I thus hope that my work will ultimately be a source of sensual
and intellectual satisfaction for others, and that they may further
illuminate the self."
Ellen Chambers
The subject of Ellen Chambers’ artwork is the formless aspect
of experience, something that exists in abstract space yet enters the
room with us and contributes to our view. "Most of my work originates
from my own synesthesia, or cross-modal sensory perception," Chambers
explains. "I experience all senses – hearing, touch, smell,
taste and proprioception*, emotions, letters, words and numbers as color,
form, illumination, three-dimensional space and linear time." For
Chambers, these literal perceptions exist as virtual vocabularies; art-making
turns them into language. The products are visual, material renderings
– drawings, sculpture, prints, handmade paper – intended
to offer the viewer a new experience.
*The personal sense of where in space, and in relation to each other,
one’s body and limbs are.
The Vermont Watercolor Society
The Vermont Watercolor Society was formed by a small group of artists
in 1995. The first meeting was held in the basement of the Congregational
Church in Manchester Village. The goal was to promote awareness of the
watercolor medium throughout the state and to connect watercolorists
living in Vermont with one another through potlucks, meetings and shows.
Today the Society boasts over 100 members statewide and is growing.
Signature membership has been established for those members who have
been accepted into at least three juried shows. The Vermont Watercolor
Society now hosts three to four group shows a year at various venues
across the state. This is the Society’s second group exhibition
at the Southern Vermont Arts Center. Plans are in the works for further
educational opportunities, with more workshops and demonstrations scheduled
for this year. Membership is open to all watercolor artists residing
in Vermont. More information at www.vermontwatercolorsociety.com.
December Solo Exhibitions
December 9, 2006-January 9, 2007
Opening Reception
Saturday, December 9, 2006
2:00-4:00 p.m.
Anne Lloyd
Anne Lloyd’s new paintings create imagery that flows between abstraction
and landscape utilizing diaphanous layers, time and horizontal bands
of color. Earlier works were described as "luminous compositions"
and explored color, gesture and memory. Lloyd continues to explore through
layers in a structurally formal and metaphorical manner. These new layer
color paintings offer abstract pictorial elements that describe the
meditative quality of experience in nature and life. Multiple veils
of contemplative imagery reveal both an insouciant logic and underlying
sobriety in these naturalistic paintings. Across layers that have evolved
over time, through an additive and subtractive process, light, atmosphere
and narrative meet. Since her first solo exhibition in New York in 1990,
Lloyd has shown at the Chrysler Museum, The Connecticut Gallery, Hobart
and William Smith Colleges, Cornell University, Columbus Museum of Art
Collectors Gallery, The Lincoln Center Gallery and Webb and Parson’s
Gallery, among others.
Tim Gaydos
Tim Gaydos believes that ours is a throwaway society and that its throwaway
nature, in fact, extends beyond the usual ‘disposables’
– commodities and buildings, say – to people as well. Those
who can’t produce for the economy because of mental, physical
or social conditions are tossed aside, like so much refuse, and often
left to forage for themselves on the streets of our cities. They are
ignored by many who are afraid to part with a little change –
afraid also to recognize that "There but for the grace of God go
I." "I depict the plight of the homeless in hopes of allowing
people to consider the desperation of these, our fellow humans, and
perhaps to engender in their hearts some sympathy for them," says
Gaydos. "We are all here together on this earth. I believe those
who have been blessed with more should help those who have not been
so fortunate."
Glenn Suokko
"Process, materials, and subjects are inextricably linked in my
paintings that reflect a sensibility informed by the environment in
which I live with my family in Woodstock, Vermont," says Glenn
Suokko. Painting still lifes directly from life and depicting the natural
qualities of the objects placed before him, he chooses to paint pictures
of everyday household objects – often empty vessels that denote
purpose and function, but perhaps connote much more. In his recent series
of paintings, Suokko seeks to avoid a visual narrative and instead focuses
attention on depicting the sublime nature of utilitarian objects, thereby
bestowing significance – even monumentality – when these
simple objects are seen in isolation. "The quietude that still
life painting can evoke reflects a modest communion with the objects
and the process of painting them," he says. "The search for
beauty, atmosphere, and light in the arrangement of selected objects…
reveals the poetry of reverence and emotion."
Barbara Storrs
Barbara Storrs is a Vermont artist whose art reflects an intuitive response
to something she sees or feels rather than reflecting a desire for a
representational rendering. For Storrs, inspiration may come from a
flower, a word, her love of animals, a sense of humor, or a tender part
of the heart… anything and everything calling out for a response.
"Color is important to me but the real excitement comes from the
surprise of the finished piece," says Storrs. "I start a painting
with brush in hand, a thought in mind, and a feeling in my heart, and
let intuition guide me to the finish, never really knowing where that
will be." The result is abstract paintings with warmth and energy.
Barbara Storrs has studied with internationally recognized instructors.
Miklos L. Sebek
"I am inspired by harmonious relationships between human beings,
particularly by the emotional bond between mother and child, and within
the family." says sculptor Miklos L. Sebek. To express this concept
in a semi-figurative sculpture, Sebek uses intertwined, sensuous forms
and refined, smooth surfaces. Another theme favored by Sebek is music.
"Six of my musically related abstract sculptures reflect this interest
where I have been seeking to make three-dimensional compositions that
create harmony in a visual sense, much like a composer does with an
arrangement of musical sounds," Sebek says. MiklosL. Sebek works
in a variety of styles, both realistic and abstract, and in a multitude
of media, including bronze, marble, wood, stainless steel and aluminum.
Helen Young
Helen Young lives and paints in Landgrove, Vermont. She started painting
in the late 1980’s and is primarily self-taught. Her work is an
interesting blend of the abstract and the representational, the accurately
observed and intuitively perceived. She paints quickly, on location,
trying to capture the abstract pattern of the underlying shapes and
colors of nature. Besides landscape, she likes to paint close-up studies
of flowers in her garden, still lifes, and interiors, giving us wonderfully
intense and, at times, jewel like vignettes of the world around her.
She has participated in many group shows at the SVAC, but this is her
first two person show here.
Arleen Targan
Arleen Targan is, primarily, a landscape painter with an intense interest
in the natural world. Working outdoors, however, becomes difficult for
much of the year and she sometimes chooses to paint natural forms –
that is, still lifes – indoors. Using a large landscape painting
in the background, Targan sets up various vegetables, flowers, and fruits
against this backdrop. The back edge of the table becomes the horizon
line, the blue gray painted landscape the sky, a reflective metal bowl
becomes a pond-like reflection and fruits and vegetables stand in for
the shapes of nature, a la shrubs and plants. "If all of this seems
fanciful," Targan says, "it came to be only as a natural result
in the process of painting. Light is the element that gives form and
shape to everything, indoors or out. Outdoors, there is less control
over the elements. In my studio I can rearrange them to my liking."
Jeanette Staley
Through painting and collage – she layers scraps of torn papers,
building impasto textures, and thin drippings of acrylic paint –
Jeanette Staley’s work represents a struggle with the dichotomy
of increasingly intolerant political/social U.S. policy as it relates
to real experience. "Currently, I am infatuated with the sky but
I am also reminded of great ocean depths," says Staley. "Its
vastness and openness, juxtaposed with small windows of orchard fruits,
painted in a moment of ripeness, fullness and sensuousness on the brink
of decay… and eggs, representing rebirth and hope." A 2005
recipient of the Vermont Arts Council and the NEA’s Creation Grant,
Ms Staley’s venues have included the DeCordova Museum of Contemporary
Art in Lincoln, MA, the Infinity Gallery and the Gallery of Social/Political
Art, Boston, and the Cambridge Art Association in Cambridge. She is
a member of Women’s Caucus for Art, Boston.
15th Annual Little Picture Show
As the name implies, the Member-Artists who create the little wonders
that fill the annual Little Picture Show are compelled to create works
on a smaller than usual scale. An exercise in precision and thrift,
these pieces can be no larger than 8"x10" and no costlier
than $350. In fact, many if not most of these masterpieces are priced
considerably below that threshold, which makes the Little Picture Show
the ideal venue for purchasing holiday gifts. And, of course, at prices
like this, a person couldn’t be blamed for taking the opportunity
to pick up a piece or two for their own collection!
15th Annual Winter Members Exhibition
January 13-February 6, 2007
Opening Reception
Saturday, January 13, 2007
2:00-4:00 p.m.
Exhibitors
Juried Artist Members from the New England Region
A bright and welcome tonic for the deepest reaches of winter, the 15th
Annual Winter Members Exhibition fills Yester House Gallery with a vast
and wondrous array of fine art. Open to Arts Center Artist Members from
throughout New England – and eagerly awaited by art buyers and
casual gallery-goers alike – the Annual Winter Members Exhibition
regularly presents paintings, photographs, sculpture and mixed media
pieces of the very highest quality.
The paintings on this page were part of the 14th Annual Winter Members
Exhibition in 2006.
February Solo Exhibitions
February 10-March 6, 2007
Opening Reception
Saturday, February 10, 2007
2:00-4:00 p.m.
Keith Hoffman
Born in Tarrytown, New York, Keith Hoffman’s early interest in
drawing and painting was encouraged by two of his uncles, who were professional
illustrators. Though he would eventually work in the recording industry
for a number of years, his interest in painting never waned and he maintained
a strong compulsion to depict the natural world in paint. Which, in
fact, he did and, after receiving many requests to sell his work, he
set himself the goal of becoming a full-time artist. Hoffman moved to
Vermont in time and has, over the years, developed a considerable following
for his renditions of the barns, fields and streams of his adopted state,
as well as the rugged coastline of Maine. Though known primarily for
his watercolors, the self-taught artist has recently found similar success
with his oil paintings. His work can be seen in galleries throughout
New England.
Judith Stone
Through this exhibit, "Tokyo/Upsurge," Judith Stone seeks
to recreate the charged quality of Tokyo life as the artist discovered
it during a year spent in Japan in the mid-1980’s. To develop
core motifs, Stone employs the medium, graphite, that has generated
her work since 1977. A second stratum of photographic imagery, perceived
through tinted, transparent Plexiglas, suggests time past while the
integration of metallic "found objects" indicates the gritty
reality of the contemporary cityscape. The lean, vertical pieces in
their housing combine to convey the high-voltage "otherness"
of Tokyo for stunned Westerners. A MacDowell Colony Resident Fellow
and winner of numerous awards, Judith Stone is currently included in
Marquis Who’s Who in American Art.
Tracy Baker-White
"For the past ten years I have been working on landscapes in oil,"
says artist Tracy Baker-White. "My attraction to the landscape
as subject matter is rooted in a variety of ideas – including
a belief that we visually bond to our environment at a very young age."
Baker-White begins most of her paintings in the field with brushy sketches
that are later more fully developed in her studio. Baker-White loves
the tactile qualities of paint – in some cases, her strong brushwork
actually becomes part of the subject matter – and prefers to paint
on smooth surfaces such as gessoed board. "I underpaint in orange
or purple to provide unexpected color combinations in my paintings,
and to enrich the layers of color painted on top. My approach to form
is sculptural," she says. "I see forms as volumetric shapes
defined by contour lines – as whole forms rather than as accumulations
of details."
Ingrid Fromel Buckley
Artist Ingrid Fromel Buckley was born and raised in Vienna, Austria,
moved to New York City to work as a freelance fashion illustrator and
now, in Vermont, concentrates on painting. Her subjects are primarily
still lifes, interiors and landscapes. In her fifteen years in Vermont,
Ingrid Fromel Buckley has exhibited at the Stratton Arts Festival, here
at the Southern Vermont Arts Center and at the Springfield Art and Historical
Society. She has also exhibited her work in numerous galleries across
the country.
Berta Burr
Berta Burr was raised in Buffalo, New York, a few blocks from the Albright
Knox Museum of Art. Childhood afternoons spent in its galleries were
the catalyst for a lifelong involvement with painting. Her collaboration
with her husband, Walter Burr, a harpsichord maker noted for careful
copies, has resulted in Burr’s working knowledge of 17th and 18th
century materials and techniques. "I believe that craftsmanship
informs creativity; my long involvement with 17th, 18th and 19th century
painting and finishing techniques – as a professional restorer,
gilder and decorator – has been important to my development as
an artist," says Burr. "As an artist, I strive to combine
technical ability with creative vision. I have a sincere respect for
my subject, my materials and my audience. This absence of cynicism is
essential to my work. My ultimate goal as an artist is to produce a
body of work that is both fresh and timeless."
Richard Jaworowski
A self-taught sculptor working predominantly in Vermont marble, Richard
Jaworowski sculpts using anything that will cut or shape stone: grinders,
hammer drills, saws, and especially his rotary file. The finishing process,
however, is all done by hand, using files and rasps, diamond sanding
pads, sanding stones, and wet and dry sandpapers. "I am a sculptor
of dreams," says Jaworowski. "I do not carve to represent
reality. The fluid line, the gentle swell of human form, and the fleeting
images of nature’s beauty are the elements I need to create, and
what I shape to capture the deeper emotions of the mind. The perception
of beauty with no need to define and the desire to touch and explore
each piece are the reactions I desire." Jaworowski has exhibited
in New England, Pennsylvania and Florida and was selected for the 42nd
annual exhibition of the National Sculpture Society in New York.
Michaela Harlow
Southern Vermont artist Michaela Harlow’s paintings exist on the
border between figuration and abstraction, where remembered experiences
and emotionally evocative circumstances are represented by a poetic
use of color and form. These paintings want to show you "places
interior"; places painted after they have passed through the complex
emotional filter of memory. Although the individual situations inspiring
her paintings may be personal, it is a desire to convey the universal
human experience of emotion that has brought these paintings to life.
The pieces’ titles, such as Rain at Home, refer not to places
on a map, but hint at an internal world we all share. Ms Harlow exhibits
in galleries and public spaces throughout the country; she’s been
featured in national art publications and has provided cover art for
books and recordings by a number of notable American writers and musicians.
Nancy E. Winters
At the end of The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy says, "…if I ever
go looking for my heart’s desire again, I won’t look any
further than my own back yard." James Joyce found archetypal myths
enacted in local bars and whorehouses. Nancy E. Winters finds them suggested
right around the house, in compositions of wading pools, plastic flamingos,
old cars, flower gardens and lawn furniture. For twenty-five years,
Winters supported herself in New York City as a set designer for film
and theater. After working on A Beautiful Mind, in 2000, she decided
to do her own work, full-time. No longer needing or wanting to live
in the city, Winters moved into a barn on her sister’s property
in Westford, Vermont. She intends to become an established American
watercolorist whose work challenges assumptions about the medium and
makes the ordinary marvelous.
Art from the Schools
March 10-April 16, 2007
Opening Reception
Saturday, March 10, 2007 2:00-4:00 p.m.
Young Picassos Pizza Party
Wednesday, March 28, 2007 3:00-6:00 p.m.
Exhibitors
Students from area schools
The Mission Statement of the Southern Vermont Arts Center "is to
make both the visual and performing arts an integral part of the life
of our community and region." And how better to do that than by
encouraging and nurturing the artistic talents of the Northshire’s
school children? To that end, each spring, the Arts Center’s ongoing
Outreach Program presents the annual Art from the Schools exhibition.
A perennial favorite of all concerned – including SVAC personnel,
the art teachers, the student artists and the admiring public –
Art from the Schools showcases work by area students from the elementary
grades through high school. The diverse nature of the artistic talent
presented is a testimony to the level of outstanding guidance that the
local art teachers provide to nurture creativity in their students.
Schools who participated in the 2006 exhibition included Arlington Area
Child Care, Inc., Arlington Memorial High School, Burr & Burton
Academy, Chester Andover Elementary School, Currier Memorial School,
The Dorset School, Fisher Elementary School, Flood Brook Union School,
The Long Trail School, Manchester Elementary and Middle School, Maple
Street Elementary School, Mettowee Community School, Southshire School
and Vermont Academy.
The annual Young Picassos’ Pizza Party, a very special artist’s
reception for all participating students and their teachers and families,
will be held during the exhibition in Yester House Gallery on Wednesday,
March 28, 2007 from 3:00 to 6:00 p.m.
Vermont Pastel Society
March 10-April 16, 2007
Opening Reception
Saturday, March 10, 2007
2:00-4:00 p.m.
Exhibitors
Members of the Vermont Pastel Society
Founded in 1999 by Vermont artist Sean Dye, the Vermont Pastel Society
(VPS) fosters and further encourages the brilliance practiced by pastelists
of all styles and skill levels – beginners to masters, working
in oils as well as soft or dry pastels – throughout Vermont and
its neighbors, New York state, Massachusetts and New Hampshire. A member
of the prestigious International Association of Pastel Societies (IAPS),
the Vermont Pastel Society and its growing membership sponsors meetings,
exhibits, instructional workshops and group paint-outs state wide. They
can be reached online via a link from the IAPS site, www.pastelinternational.com.
This is their third group showing at the Arts Center.
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