Culture

Brattleboro, Vt. – Painter Judy Hawkins, whose studio is a popular stop on the annual Putney Craft Tour in November, is showing recent work in gallery spaces at All Souls Church UU in West Brattleboro through the end of March. An artist’s reception is set for 2 to 4 p.m. on Saturday, February 13.

Judy knew she was an artist from the age of five or six and always seemed to have a view of her surroundings that was different from that of her friends. “When I paint,” she shares, “I have an internal ‘dialog’ with myself. I think this ‘conversation’ is hard-wired, but I’ve only recently recognized how important and integrated it is to how I see and interpret my sensory world, and how it takes form and color in my painting.”

There are still several places available for artists to travel to Spain as part of the River Gallery School’s trip in April. The trip, which will be held from April 2 to 9, is nearing capacity, but several places still remain.

The group will spend 7 nights in a charming hotel in Andalucia, about an hour south of Seville in a perfect setting for artists, photographers and anyone who wants to experience the soul of Spanish culture. There will be excursions to Seville and the nearby town of Ronda.

The tour will include a week of making art and exploration of the Spanish countryside. Pleine air painting sessions will be led by Mary Giammarino, a frequent instructor at River Gallery School workshops and a well known local artist.

Guilford Center Stage continues into its second year with spring and fall productions of plays with strong connections to Guilford, continuing its mission to present place-based theater on the stage at Broad Brook Grange.  The new theater project debuted last fall with a production of the comedy, Tourists Accommodated, by Vermont author, Dorothy Canfield Fisher, who often visited Guilford.

A pair of one-acts by Guilford playwright Michael Nethercott opens the 2016 season in early June.  At the other end of the season, Charles W. Henry, who was born in Guilford in 1850, will be represented by his only known extant play, performed on the stage with the theater curtains which he painted around 1900.

Brattleboro, Vt. – Gallery Walk returns this Friday to liven up the downtown and a few satellite locations within a short drive of Main Street. There are 31 listed venues, many with meet-the-artist receptions.

Official Gallery Walk hours are 5:30 to 8:30, though most venues are open earlier and several remain open later into the evening. Patrons are encouraged to begin their artistic explorations a little early this Friday and stop on the way into town at The Marina Restaurant off Putney Road, where refreshments are offered to Walk patrons from 5 to 6:30. Coming from the west, consider stopping at C. X. Silver Gallery at 814 Western Ave., open 4 to 6:30.