Spotlights
“Dragonfly Dance”
Nine metal sculptures from Junker Studio of Chester are delighting visitors at the Guilford Welcome Center, Vermont’s premier gateway, which since 2006 has hosted some five million visitors.
The nine pieces include “Woodstock,” Payne and Elise Junkers’ signature life-sized, brightly painted moose, which many will recognize from the front lawn of their Gallery 103 shop on Route 103 South at Pine View Road in Chester.
“We hadn’t even had Woodstock up an hour when people started to walk down to see it and have their pictures taken with it,” says Welcome Center Manager Kathy Dowd.
Just outside that barn-like center, Payne’s art nouveau-style dragonfly garden bench invites visitors to linger. Stroll the nature trail and you’ll find yourself amid a welcoming sculpture garden, where giant dragonflies sway in the breeze, and portions of towering geometric sculptures disappear in sun and shadow.
A giant “bird’s nest,” which Payne created by weaving together a flotsam of leftover screen, strips of copper, stainless steel, and brass, sits on the crook of a sculpted metal branch.
The center is a perfect spot to display their works, says Elise Junker, who painted Woodstock.
“The Welcome Center has orchards and herb gardens and native plants. It’s a wonderful setting for our work because we are so rooted in Vermont. It’s not too formal — it’s natural, which is what are work is. And there, walking across the field, is Woodstock,” Elise says.
Dowd says of the Junkers’ work, “We like to surprise and delight visitors by highlighting the craftsmanship and creativity of the artists in Vermont, and the Junkers are certainly a vibrant part of that.”
The Junkers have had a long relationship with the Guilford Welcome Center. Before it opened in 1999, Payne was commissioned to create the weather vane perched atop the cupola. And after the Center opened, they created a painted metal replica of the state seal still, and it’s still on display.
This is Water
VTica’s “This Is Water” focuses on water as medium and as subject matter. It illustrates the fact that like water in our daily lives, the individual artist, their awareness of self, and how they relate to their environment determine the countless ways it manifests. Some works included in the exhibition, such as those of Doug Trump, allow the viewer to swim inside them, while others represent a conceptional use of the word or situation involving the word such as Antonietta Grassi’s work. The mysterious flow of ideas ebbs and flows and permeates all that it comes in contact with, finding its own level. Just like water.
Exhibiting artists are Eric Aho, Bruce Blanchette, Katherine Bradford, Glenn Goldberg, Antonietta Grassi, Karen Gunderson, Don Nice, Lucio Pozzi, Amelia Toelke, Doug Trump, Laura Jane Walker and Kylie Wolgamott.
ITVFest
We’ve all heard of Sundance, Cannes, even SXSW – those renowned film festivals where admittance is steep and the crowd is strictly business. Sure, they’re great for discovering blockbusters, but rarely does a Hollywood event purposely aim to involve as many fans, visitors, and tourists as this year’s Independent Television and Film Festival (ITVFest), says promoter Phil Gilpin.
The festival recently moved from Hollywood and takes place during Vermont’s famous fall foliage season. “I hope that bringing this world-class arts event out of Hollywood and into the mountains of Southern Vermont will help breathe new life into the region and kick-start a renaissance of art and culture,” Gilpin says.
ITVFest celebrates all things media and pays tribute to the best and brightest independent content creators in TV, short film, and web series from around the world. The festival also highlights live musical events, circus performers, artisanal products, and food, as well as booths with the latest industry technology, and tasteful shopping destinations.
Fall Into Art
The Third Annual Fall Into Art silent auction features art by more than 50 local artists (working in a full range of media including wood, ceramic, glass, photography, paint, textiles, and other media). Their work will be displayed alongside framed art by young children who are participating in local child care programs.
Other artists donating work include Eric Hendrick and Noelle VanHendrick, Nancy Calicchio, Josh and Marta Bernbaum, Robert Burch, Kay Curtis, Liz deNiord, Brad Dinwiddie, Charlie Hunter, Gordon Jones, Carol Keiser, Naomi Lindenfield, David Mischke, Janet Picard, Lydia Thomson, and Laura Zindel. (A complete list of artists can be found at windhamchildcare.org.)
Here at the magazine, we were pleased that participating artists may opt to receive half of the final sale price for their work. We know how often the art community is asked for donations. The organizers of this event realized it too and found a great way to honor the artists and their creativity.
Windham County Child Care ensures access to high-quality child care for all children in the county and works to build a healthy and thriving community from healthy and thriving children, the keepers of inspiration for artists everywhere.
Our Fragile Home
Our Fragile Home is about stepping outside the world and seeing new perspective, seeing our fragile home. The exhibit of 29 sculptures and works on paper by Pat Musick was inspired by the words that astronauts/cosmonauts from many nations have used when viewing the Earth for the first time from outer space. The exhibit stresses the timely topic of the fragile nature of our planet and the need to preserve and protect our “home.” Musick’s husband, Jerry Carr, a retired NASA astronaut, is Musick’s working partner; he is responsible for the engineering and fabricating all of her sculptural designs.
Brattleboro Film Festival
The second annual nonprofit, fully-volunteer-run Brattleboro Film Festival (BFF) will present the best current films from the U.S. and around the world that inform, challenge, entertain, and inspire, emphasizing viewpoints and characters often unseen in mainstream media.
More than 20 films and associated events will appeal to a wide audience including a free opening night reception in the Latchis Hotel’s Art Deco lobby during Brattleboro’s November Gallery Walk; free daytime screenings; filmmaking workshops; talks with visiting filmmakers and local filmmaking talent; and the audience-chosen “Best in Fest” award and screening.
A special BFF gala will celebrate the Southern Vermont festival premiere of the locally produced Freedom & Unity: The Vermont Movie, with the film’s project director, Nora Jacobson. Scores of filmmakers from around the state worked for over six years on this unique collaboration that explores, in six standalone features that comprise the film, what makes Vermont Vermont.
Get your cattitude on!
Vermont’s elusive mountain lions, the catamounts, have taken over Bennington, Vermont.
Come see big cats embellished by local artists, little cats created by students, and fun merchandise, including catamount baseball caps, toy cats, a special golden catamount microbrew, cat pins, school cats, street art sculpture cats, catamount t-shirts, paintings of cats, catamount ties, and pint glasses, all embellished with the Catamount Prowl logo.
A street art project organized by the Bennington Area Chamber of Commerce, the Catamount Prowl follows two other successful events involving moose and art pallets.
The prowl goes through fall, culminating in a gala and auction. Pick up a map and scavenger hunt instructions and join the fun during fall foliage.
Auction for Hospice
A combination live and silent auction, this festive event features refurbished, hand-painted, and otherwise enhanced mirrors by local artists Kris McDermet, who works in fiber; Lynn Hoeft, whose medium is watercolor; Ron Karpius, who paints and does metal work; Janet Picard and Jacqueline Perry, mother and daughter painters; Marta Bernbaum, glass artist; Sharon Myers, master chef and fiber artist; Ron Demers, woodworker; Lauri Richardson, mosaic artist; Walter Slowinski, potter; and Jen Wiechers, painter and mosaic artist.
The live auction with auctioneer Kit Martin features a Roseville teapot, a fainting couch, and a handsome upholstered rocking chair, plus many other high quality pieces of antique and good-condition furniture, jewelry, paintings, china, glassware, and decorative items. An African photographic safari will also be available for bid in the live auction.
Silent auction offerings include Mount Snow day passes, catered dinners, bottles of wine, and many other items. For an up-to-date list of items, photographs of some of the embellished mirrors, and information about the artists, visit the website.
The auction benefits Brattleboro Area Hospice, an independent, community-based, nonprofit whose work addresses the physical, emotional, and spiritual needs of dying neighbors and their families. All proceeds directly support these free services.Earth as Muse
The artists in “Earth as Muse: Beauty, Degradation, Hope, Regeneration, Awakening” — including Fran Bull, Pat Musick, Harry A. Rich, Jenny Swanson, and Richard Weis — ask us to celebrate the beauty of the Earth, yet at the same time reflect on the tensions between mankind and the natural environment. This exhibition is celebratory, yet suggestive of a warning to the preciousness of the Earth and caring for our source of life.
