Arts

River Gallery School will display the work of Jamis Lott, artist, puppeteer, maskmaker, and philosopher, throughout January with a public opening during Gallery Walk. Jamis, along with his father Steve, was killed recently in Townshend. He was 28.

Since early childhood, Jamis had an exceptional interest in and talent for art. Along with his friend and teacher, Margaret (Missy) Stearns, he worked on art projects exploring his vivid imagination. When he was a child, she helped him collage a giant dragon, which hung for years in his family’s kitchen. They remained close and important friends throughout Jamis’ life.

Thursday, December 18, 8:30pm – 10:30pm, join us for a celebration of performance poetry in a unique visual arts environment.

Featuring:

• Clara Rose Thornton, 2014 Dublin (Ireland) Slam Poetry Champion whose work examines memory, lust, social justice and racial injustice.
• Nye Ffarrabas, innovator and word alchemist, active since the New York Fluxus scene of the 1960s.
• Alec Silver, actor and enthusiast of language.
  

Post Oil Solutions, continuing its innovative efforts to raise awareness about the growing climate crisis, is organizing Climate Change & the Arts, an evening of poetry, music, and dance that will be held on the evening of Saturday, May 2, 2015 at the Hooker Dunham Theater in Brattleboro. An art exposition will also be held in the Hooker Dunham Gallery.

Members of the literary, visual and performing arts communities of Windham County, both professional and amateur, interested in contributing their time and talent are invited to answer our call for poetry and performers. For more information consult the event website: http://www.climatechangeishere2015.com/, or contact Linda Brown at rise.up.vermont@gmail.com.

Brattleboro-West Arts members are collaborating with Strolling of the Heifers to present an art exhibit entitled “Harmony: Health” in the hallways of Brattleboro Memorial Hospital, beginning on Friday, December 5.

Expanding on the agricultural themes featured in twoshows presented by the organizations last summer, the artwork will explore pathways to better health including spiritual pursuit, engagement with the natural world, and through local agriculture.

All of the works are for sale, and proceeds will benefit Strolling of the Heifers as well as the artists.

Middlebury College artist-in-residence Jule Emerson will discuss the fashions worn by Lady Mary and her family in the popular PBS series Downton Abbey in a talk at Brooks Memorial Library in Brattleboro on December 3 at 7:00 pm.

Her talk, “The Costumes of Downton Abbey,” is part of the Vermont Humanities Council’s First Wednesdays lecture series and is free and open to the public. 

Emerson has been an Artist-in-Residence, costume designer, and professor at Middlebury College since 1990. Prior to coming to Middlebury, she worked professionally as a costume artist for television, feature films, commercials, and the professional theatre.

Flash Fiction writers who have written pieces on the theme of hope will be reading their stories at the Blue Dot Studio in the Hooker Dunham building on Friday, Dec 5 at 7 PM. The prizewinners of Write Action’s writing contest, Anna Blackburn, Stephanie Greene and Helen Neswald will read as will other talented writers, including Olivia Howe, Jennie Reichman, Pamela Mandell, and Elayne Clift.

After these readings, there will be 20 minutes reserved for anyone who wants to read a flash fiction piece on the theme of hope. Bear in mind that all readers are limited to no more than 5 minutes to read. This is about excellence, hope, and brevity.

16th Annual Cotton Mill Open Studio and Holiday Sale at 74 Cotton Mill Hill, Brattleboro, VT on Saturday, December 6, 10am-6pm and Sunday, December 7, 10am-4pm.

It’s that time of year again to share in the holiday spirit with family, friends, and artists at the much anticipated 16th Annual Cotton Mill Open Studio and Holiday Sale, Saturday and Sunday, December 6 and 7, 2014.

Everyone is invited to experience the hospitality of 25 resident artists, musicians, bakers, cooks, dancers, circus performers, and craftspeople of the Cotton Mill, and an additional 32 juried, local participating artists and artisans. Putney Grammar School’s K – 8 student art will also be on display. This is a festive event for the entire family. So much to see, so much to do, so much to sample and to buy!

Company of Muses has announced tickets for the 2014 Brattleboro School of Dance production of The Nutcracker will go on sale Monday, November 17.

Show times for this year’s run of the holiday classic are 7:00pm on Friday and Saturday, December 19-20, and then matinees at 1:00pm and 5:00pm on Sunday, December 21. All performances will take place at the New England Youth Theatre, located at 100 Flat Street in Brattleboro.

Tickets can be purchased online through BrattleboroSchoolofDance.com or by visiting the studio, located at 22 High Street in downtown Brattleboro, on Saturdays between 11:00am to 3:00pm. The studio will not be open on Saturday, November 29, due to the Thanksgiving holiday.

PUTNEY, VT—This year the 36th Annual Putney Craft Tour slated for Thanksgiving Weekend is not only a Top Ten Winter event as named by the Vermont Chamber of Commerce, but also is helping to fight hunger in the community. The tour is partnering with the Putney Foodshelf by using art to support food for those who are in need.

BRATTLEBORO, VT (November 3)—The Boston Gay Men’s Chorus served up a memorable night of song, advocacy, and community spirit in front of a capacity crowd at the Latchis Theatre on Saturday night, November 1st. The sold-out event helped raise more than $25,000 for the Brattleboro Retreat’s LGBT Program, now in its 5th year of serving the LGBTQ community.

As a part of the evening’s program, the Retreat presented Representative Bill Lippert of Hinesburg with the hospital’s 2014 Anna Marsh Award in recognition of his advocacy on behalf of people with mental illness or addiction.

I remember Galway as a man of action, conviction, and kindness. Some years ago I had spoken to him about our mutual poet friend Hayden Carruth, and Hayden never receiving the recognition that he deserved as one of the truly great Vermont poets. I had suggested that Hayden should be recognized as a state poet laureate, but the state wouldn’t offer that recognition. Galway quietly said, “Let’s see what we can do.”

November’s exhibit in the Gallery at the Garden (Robert H. Gibson River Garden, 157 Main St.) features works by painter and set designer Clay Coyle in a show titled Fresh Paint: Reflections of Color in Landscapes and Trees.

Concurrently, the River Garden, home of Strolling of the Heifers, will host an exhibit of historical materials from the archives of Kurn Hattin Homes for Children, the Westminster residential school for children at-risk or in need. Established in 1894, Kurn Hattin serves boys and girls, ages 5-15, who are affected by tragedy, social or economic hardship, or other disruption in family life.

Now a resident of Venice, Florida, Coyle maintains a studio in Putney and just recently moved from his S. Londonderry, Vermont homestead which he had kept since 1980. Clay has actively painted and worked on set and lighting design since he entered Williams College in 1968. He graduated in 1972, winning the Gilbert W. Gabriel Prize in Drama for his design and technical work. From Williams he headed to New York City where he designed sets for the Classic Stage Company, the New Dramatists Inc., the Producer’s Association for Young America, the Spanish Repertory Company, and others.

WESTMINSTER, VT—Kurn Hattin Homes for Children will hold a public reception to celebrate the unveiling of a new historical exhibit entitled, A Legacy of Caring: Adapting to the Changing Needs of Children and Families. All are welcome to attend Thursday, November 6 from 5:30 – 7:00 PM at the Robert H. Gibson River Garden, 157 Main St. Brattleboro.

This opening reception will be hosted by Kurn Hattin Homes for Children’s Executive Director, Connie Sanderson, and will feature a brief presentation and Q and A session. Refreshments will be provided.

Last week of the art show at the Library – A world illuminated by Imagination! And the 100 Flowers of Peace banners

“A World Illuminated by Imagination” to celebrate the library, the enchantment of books, and how they enrich our lives and communities. The exhibit has several parts: The design in the window “How does a library illuminate your Imagination?”;  100 Flowers of Peace poem which is now translated into l05 languages on display in the mezzanine; and the celebrated collection of poems Vermont My Home mounted on slate with Namaya’s photos  of Vermont. All the art work is for sale and a portion of proceeds will benefit Brooks Memorial Library and . 

October 25, Saturday at 7:30 pm, Guilford continues its celebration of the 100th birthday of Welsh poet, Dylan Thomas, with his masterpiece, Under Milk Wood, a Play for Voices.  Broad Brook Grange presents this performance, which takes place upstairs on stage at the Grange in Guilford Center, just two days before the poet’s actual birthday.  General admission is $10; $5 for seniors. 

The Packer Corners Players, our region’s most reclusive theater group, will be the readers, bringing back their 1968 private performance at Packer Corners Farm, and their 25th anniversary revival in 1993. 

PORNOGRAPHY OF WAR in AN AGE OF DESIRE

At the Art Rageous Gallery at Harmony Parking. This multimedia show by Namaya, is an on going show that through art, word, performance, and design looks at the cost of war and militarism and its impact on society.

Making Peace with Oddity, an exhibition of paintings and drawings by MARILYN ALLEN and NAN HEMINWAY will be exhibited at the Crowell Gallery in the Moore Free Library in Newfane, VT, November 1-December 10, 2014. The opening reception is on Saturday November 1, 3-5 PM.

The work in this exhibition is informed by ALLEN and HEMINWAY’s decade-long practice of visiting each other’s studios. ALLEN, who has been an outreach painting teacher at the River Gallery School for ten years, lives in Halifax. Her paintings began with landscapes dominated by trees in the wild environment where she lives. The focus of her current body of work has moved into a closer perspective that dissolves shapes into more abstracted forms inspired by both natural and man-made shapes.

PUTNEY- On October 24th and 25th at 7:30pm, Spybird Theater brings Egg Noir to Sandglass Theater in Putney as part of the New Visions puppetry series. Drawing on object theater and puppetry traditions, Egg Noir is a highly visual and distinctly surreal exploration of genetic engineering.

A scientist who breeds egg heads, a machine who processes them into eye balls, and a poet in the desert who records the eye’s vision, are locked into a routine that produces a healthy eyeball. One day a villain infiltrates this world and modifies one of the freshly hatched eggs in the beginning of the production chain. What used to be a flawless sequence of events now gets messy and the world of Egg Noir unravels, threatening to dissolve its inhabitants and their globe. “This is what you get when you mix puppetry and alchemy,” states Carl Wieting, Puppet Slam Curator at the Puppet Showplace in Boston.

Get a rare sneak peek at the Library’s Collection of Hidden Treasures on Friday, October 10, 5:30 PM. Through gifts and bequests over the past 150 years, Brooks Memorial Library has assembled a rich and varied collection of art and artifacts that rivals even some museums.

The collection includes sculpture, ceramics, paintings, rare books, maps, photographs and other ephemera and archaeological objects. Many if not most of these pieces have not been displayed for years – some, in fact, never.

On Friday, October 10th, at 7:30pm and Sunday, October 12th at 3pm at Sandglass Theater, —Eric Bass and Ines Zeller Bass, Brendan Taaffe, Anna Patton, Kirk Murphy and Amanda Maddock share with you the mystique and low-tech charm of pairing song and story with scrolling pictures.
 
With the serenade of ballads, stories, comic songs and originally composed music, this exciting team of artists will present an assortment of beautifully handcrafted crankies for your delight and entertainment. Crankies are scrolling illustrations, wound inside a wooden box and then hand-cranked so that the images move across a viewing screen. Once called ‘moving panoramas’, crankies were as close as it got to films in the early 19th century. Recently crankies have made a fresh and invigorated appearance throughout the nation, appearing in circuses, music events and yes…puppet theaters.