Ruth Einstein climbs in Norway. Einstein and Bryan Pfeiffer will give a talk, “Naked in Norway: Backpacking with Wildlife Above the Arctic Circle,” on Oct 25 at the Nature Museum at Grafton.
Bennington Center for the Arts
44 Gypsy Lane, Bennington
10a to 5p, Mon-Sun (Closed Mon)
http://www.thebennington.org, 802 442-7158
Thru Dec 23: Small Works Show. Beautiful works in a broad variety of subjects, but with a size limitation of 14 inches. Thru Sept 17: The Laumeister Fine Art Competition. Annual competition juried by Calvin Liang, a highly respected member of the Oil Painters of America and the California Art Club. Representational work is not limited to subject and each year this show offers patrons an impressive collection of work by many of the day’s finest artists.
The 1863 Sampler Quilt by Jane A. Stickle (1817-1896). This quilt, made of pieced cotton with linen backing, inspires quilters all over the world and will be on its yearly display at the Bennington Museum thru Oct 9.
Bennington Museum
75 Main St., Route 9, Bennington
10a to 5p (Closed Wed)
http://www.benningtonmuseum.org, 802 477-1571
Thru Nov. 5: Grandma Moses: American Modern. On view at the Bennington Museum, its final venue, this exhibit has a subversive goal, for it will upset your expectations and get you to look at this beloved American artist with fresh eyes. It is a long-overdue exhibition that reestablishes her place in the mid-century art world that was embracing modern art at the same time. Oct 6: First Friday at the Bennington Museum. We’re digging into the toy box to share our “Amazing Toys of Long Ago.” Children and adults can have fun exploring, learning about, and playing with the kinds of toys children played with in the 1850s to 1920s. We’ll meet you in the schoolhouse to play. Sept 22: Music at the Museum Presents Appalachian Harvest. Big Stone Gap is joined by Alyson Slack on fiddle and Aaron Pacitti on guitar to perform music from fiddle tunes to rock ’n’ roll. Thru Oct 9: 1863 Jane Stickle Quilt. The quilt that inspires quilters all over the world will be on its yearly display at the Bennington Museum. Sept 15: Stoneware collectors’ meeting. Nov 24-Dec 30: An Annual Festival: Time for the Holidays. This year the annual festival of the season celebrates the creativity of wide range of artists as they respond to the works of Nichols Goddard’s Musical Clock, c. 1810. Dec 16: Music at the Museum: An afternoon of holiday music with Taconic Chamber Players.
Roger Sandes, “Music of Chance.” Acrylic on panel, 84 in. x 36 in. The artist’s show “Constellations” runs Sept 1 thru Jan 8, 2018 at Brattleboro Museum and Art Center.
Brattleboro Museum & Art Center
10 Vernon St., Brattleboro
11a to 5p (Closed Tues)
http://www.brattleboromuseum.org, 802 257-0124
Thru Oct 8: Wolf Kahn: Density & Transparency. Kahn’s works are in the permanent collections of major museums around the world, including the Smithsonian American Art Museum; the Metropolitan Museum of Art; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Whitney Museum of American Art; and the Brooklyn Museum. In January, Kahn was awarded the State Department’s International Medal of Arts. Thru Oct 8: Lost Porches: Nathalie Miebach. Miebach’s sculptures do much more than merely visualize information; they provide us with a compelling new means of interacting with weather data and exploring the myriad ways in which individuals and communities are affected by and respond to increasingly extreme weather. Thru Oct 8: The Boomer List: Photography by Timothy Greenfield-Sanders. In partnership with AARP and the Newseum, BMAC presents an exhibition of 19 large-format portraits of some of the most fascinating members of the influential baby boom generation—one born each year of the baby boom, from 1946 to 1964. Thru Oct 8: Free Fall: Barbara Garber. Reflecting an expanded conception of drawing, Barbara Garber’s work plays on the boundary between two- and three-dimensional representation while exploring the temporal nature of seeing and experiencing art in a specific place. Thru Oct 8: Spaceship of Dreams: William Chambers. An interactive public art project conceived by artist William Chambers. The project was first realized in a storefront in York, Penn., where Chambers built a “spaceship” over two months in spring 2015. Thru Oct 8: Boundaries, Balance, and Confinement: Mary Admasian. With an uncanny eye for composition and a spirit attuned to place, person, and community, multimedia artist Mary Admasian explores the physical boundaries between objects as well as the implicit boundaries of familial and social covenants and conventions. Thru Oct 8: Weighted Tears: Mary Admasian. Work created for outdoor exhibition at BMAC with the support of a partial grant from the Arts Endowment Fund of the Vermont Community Foundation. Sept 1-Jan 8, 2018: Constellations: Roger Sandes. Paintings incorporate timeless and universal symbols of life and fertility, integrating modern art and folk art, nature and artifact, balancing the simple and complex. Oct 13-Feb 11: Fauna. Depicting animals as symbols, teachers, muses, and companions connects human cultures across time and space. Animal images serve as proxies for happiness, distress, fear, the environment, gender roles, and more. Oct 13-March 10: Shimmering Mirage: Anila Quayyum Agha. A white light bulb transforms the gallery from an undecorated room into an enveloping world of pattern and light. The pattern cut into simple black steel hanging from the ceiling is derived from the ornamental vaults found in Islamic architecture, especially mosques. The light filtering through intricately incised screens embellishes surfaces and extends structural lines of the interior. Oct 13-Feb 11: The Scarf: Joan O’Beirne. Bright orange exterior extension cord crocheted into a scarf scaled for a giant is the basis of an ongoing series of photographs by O’Beirne. Printed on aluminum panels in shimmering shades of gray and black, the abstracted, intertwined loops create a mysterious universe that is at once cosmic and subatomic. Oct 13-Jan 8: In-Sight Exposed. Through the love of the lens and a focus on community, In-Sight Photography Project has opened the eyes, hearts and minds of almost 3,500 young people in and around Southern Vermont and across the country. This dynamic exhibition tells the story of how the worlds in front of and inside them were changed forever through photography, and how their communities—our communities—are better for their transformation. Celebrating 25 years and moving forward.
The Clark Art Institute
225 South St., Williamstown, Mass.
10a to 5p Tuesday thru Sunday
http://www.clarkart.edu, 413 458-2303
Thru Sept 24: No Rules. Helen Frankenthaler’s inventive and groundbreaking approach to the woodcut. Throughout her career, the artist worked with a variety of print publishers to push the medium in new directions. This exhibition features seventeen prints on loan from the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation and the Williams College Museum of Art. Thru Oct 9: As In Nature. Like many abstract artists, Helen Frankenthaler continually tested the constraints of the genre, at times inserting into her compositions elements of recognizable subject matter that throw the abstract elements into relief. Thru Oct 1: An Inner World. Featuring seven exceptional genre paintings by Dutch artists working in or near the city of Leiden in the 17th century. The exhibition gathers paintings from the Clark’s collection and the Leiden Collection, a private collection in New York. Thru Oct 31: Thomas Schutte: Crystal. This is the contemporary artist’s first full-scale architectural artwork in the United States. Located on a meadow near the top of Stone Hill, Crystal provides visitors the opportunity to reflect on how landscapes and places are constructed and preserved.
Hall Art Foundation
551 VT Route 106, Reading
http://www.hallartfoundation.org, 802 952 1056
Thru Nov 26: Hope and Hazards: A Comedy of Errors, curated by Eric Fischl. Approximately 65 artists are represented, including more than 80 paintings, photographs, works on paper and sculptures from the Hall and Hall Art Foundation collections. Thru Nov 26: Outdoor Sculpture by Richard Deacon, Olafur Eliasson and Marc Quinn. Thru Nov 26: Ready. Fire! Aim, curated by DJ Hellerman. Bringing together artworks addressing issues of violence and decay, gestural abstraction and linear precision, as well as the sensible and the absurd. Thru Nov 26: Hot Dog Repair: David Shrigley. The artist is best known for a distinctive and deceptively simple drawing style and for creating works that satirize contemporary society and everyday life.
Museum of Creative Process
On the grounds of the Wilburton Inn
257 Wilburton Dr., Manchester
http://www.museumofthecreativeprocess.com, 802 379-6350
Ongoing: The exhibits of the Museum of the Creative Process illustrate the scientific study of the unconscious observing the creative process as a conflict resolution mechanism. The mechanism is a six-emotion roller-coaster that begins with a normative deviation and predictably seeks conflict resolution as normative conciliation. The museum has several ongoing exhibitions, including Metaphoria Murals, Gorski Gallery, Gorski’s Response, Sanctuary of the Unit, Wizard and Wisdom, Epics of the Goddess & Scriptures of the One God, Creativity for Self Discovery and Abstractions Gallery.
Shelburne Museum
6000 Shelburne Road, Shelburne
http://www.shelburnemuseum.org, 802 985-3346
Thru Oct 31: Upstream, with Ogden Pleissner. The paintings, prints, and ephemera featured in this exhibit transport viewers to some of the avid angler’s favorite streams, rivers, and lakes from Maine to Wyoming while conveying Pleissner’s knowledge of and passion for the sport. Thru Oct 31: Pieced Traditions: Jean Lovell Collects. Featuring donations and loans from Lovell’s collection of historic quilts. Thru Oct 31: Featured Outdoor Sculpture: Aaron T Stephan. His sculptures investigate how recognizable symbols and materials shape our impressions of everyday objects. Using his critical eye and wry sense of humor, Stephan’s artworks comment on the complex webs of information and relationships carried by the material world around us. Thru Oct 31: Carpet Diem: Molly Nye Tobey Designs for the Mid-Century Home. This exhibit investigates the sources and inspirations Tobey gathered from the world around her in order to create beautiful, functional artworks with a modern flair for American homes during the mid-20th century. Sept 1-Oct 31: Grand re-opening of Dorset House. Sept 23-Feb 18: Sweet Tooth: The Art of Dessert. Sept 30-Jan 21: Hooked on Patty Yoder.
Southern Vermont Arts Center, Yester House Gallery
West Road, Manchester
10a to 5p Tues-Sat, noon-5p Sun
http://www.svac.org, 802 362-1405
Thru Sept 4: Ogden Pleissner exhibit. The watercolors of Ogden Pleissner. Thru Sept 10: SVAC’s Member Summer Show, featuring artwork from all styles and media. This is the largest group show in the area, filling 10 galleries. Sept 2-Oct 15: Vermont Artists Then and Now, with opening reception Sept 3, 4-6p. Sept 16-Nov 5: Fall solo shows, with opening reception Sept 16, 2-4p. Nov 11-Dec 30: Winter member show, with opening reception Nov 11, 2-4p.
The Nature Museum at Grafton
186 Townshend Rd., Grafton
http://www.nature-museum.org, 802 843-2111
Sept 23-24: 9th Annual Fairy House Festival. Celebrate an autumnal adventure with the magic of forest fairies. All ages. Oct 25: Talk with Bryan Pfeiffer and Ruth Einstein, “Naked in Norway: Backpacking with Wildlife Above the Arctic Circle.” Live fiddle music and images. Ongoing: The Nature Museum is a regional resource for nature, science and environmental education in Southern Vermont.
