Arts section
Our local Dance Ecology is alive and well – and thriving! MICHAEL BODEL’s innovative dance projects open our minds and hearts to explore ideas, concepts and beauty in new ways through movement, sound, objects…even fragrance!
Check out this show to hear Deborah Luskin talk about her new book “Reviving Artemis – The Making of a Huntress”. She also talks about her kinship with Vermont, the land, hiking the Long Trail, and life as a locavore. Deborah has led writing workshops, programs for the Vermont Humanities Council, been a commentator on VPR and lectured widely.
Next Stage Arts presents a vibrant new exhibition by Carol Keiser, showcasing her colorful and evocative paintings inspired by life in Putney, Vermont, and her time in Mexico. The opening reception is Sunday, Nov. 16, from 4–6 PM at Next Stage Arts, 15 Kimball Hill, Putney. RSVP at nextstagearts.org.
Keiser’s work is a visual diary, capturing the places she’s been, the experiences she’s had, and the emotions she encounters. Her focus on color—its energy, magic, and contrasts—drives each piece, whether a still life, landscape, or figure study. She often draws inspiration from memory, sketches, or her hand-painted tile designs, blending ceramics and painting in a joyful exploration of hue and composition.
We invite artists working in any medium — visual, literary, or performance — to submit works that respond to the central question:
What does democracy look like?
This isn’t a literal question. It could be as much about what democracy feels like or sounds like. It’s as much about community as politics. We welcome works that celebrate, question, grieve, protest, or reimagine.
Twenty artists from the Connecticut River Chapter of Vermont Watercolor Society will exhibit their work at All Souls Church in the West Village Meeting House from September 7 through November 30. The public is invited to an opening reception on Sunday, September 14, from 3 – 5 p.m. Beverages and light refreshments will be served. The reception is free and open to all.
With more than 240 members, the Vermont Watercolor Society is dedicated to promoting the awareness and appreciation of watercolor to its membership at all levels of ability and to the larger community by providing opportunities and venues for participation, education, fellowship, and exhibitions.
With “Two skillets and a dream” MARCEL MAXWELL created 802 SOUL KITCHEN, a catering business offering big-flavor comfort food. He’s been on a summer Pop-Up Tour – from Gallery Walk to the Guilford Fair. For Marcel, giving back to the community is at the heart of it all. Keep an eye out for Marcel and eat well!
The Vermont Dance Alliance and Next Stage Arts present The Institute for Folding, a new interdisciplinary dance work by Michael Bodel, on Friday, September 26 at 7:00 pm at Next Stage Arts, 15 Kimball Hill, Putney. Tickets are $20 and available at nextstagearts.org. Doors open at 6:15 pm.
The Institute for Folding is a cardboard choreography of human knowledge, neglect, and wonder. Through movement, language, live sound, and 30 sheets of cardboard, the work explores our relationship to knowledge—our drive for scientific understanding, the ebb and flow of our ignorance, and our current disregard for what has been discovered. The piece speaks to this precarious moment when collective trust in knowledge has faltered and our sense of shared wonder has diminished. The performance runs about an hour.
Lifelong mixed media collage artist Elizabeth Lewis is showing some “puzzling bird miniatures” at All Souls Church, UU during the month of August. Please join us for a reception on Sunday the 17th at 11:30 AM.
Elizabeth is a resident of Putney and a member of ASC. Her first show was here at the then named West Village Meetinghouse in 1981, the year she moved to Vermont from Los Angeles.
Take a listen and look into Cai Xi’s life – early years in China, her painting heritage from classical to abstract, founding CX Silver Gallery, the arts of Dim Sum cooking and Tai Chi in the community…and she’s doing it all here in Brattleboro.
Lifelong mixed-media collage artist Elizabeth Lewis is showing some “puzzling bird miniatures” at All Souls Church in West Brattleboro during the month of August. A reception for the artist will be held on Sunday, August 17, from 11.30 am to 1 pm.
Elizabeth is a resident of Putney and a member of ASC. She had her first show at the then-named West Village Meetinghouse in 1981, the year she moved to Vermont from Los Angeles, California.
Putney, VT — Next Stage Arts invites the community to the opening reception for Quiet Witness: An Homage to the Flora and Fauna of Vermont, a new exhibit of intricate etchings by Vermont-based artist Briony Morrow-Cribbs. The reception takes place Friday, August 29, from 6:00 to 8:00 pm at the NXT Gallery, located at 15 Kimball Hill in Putney. All are welcome; RSVPs are encouraged at nextstagearts.org.
Quiet Witness showcases a richly detailed menagerie of real and imagined creatures, rendered through Morrow-Cribbs’s decades-long practice as a printmaker and etcher. A self-described animal empath, she uses her art to explore what it might feel like to experience the world through the instincts and perspective of other species.
Raised on Washington’s Whidbey Island and now based in Dummerston, Morrow-Cribbs brings a deep reverence for both wilderness and craft. Her work has appeared in best-selling books, including Wicked Plants and Wicked Bugs by Amy Stewart, and in solo exhibitions across the country. Her prints are created through a painstaking etching process that dates back to her childhood, when she first learned the technique from her father.
KIMBERLY CARMODY is “Bringing it all back home”. River Gallery School of Art has been her locus and inspiration, from her first art class in 1976 to becoming Executive Director in 2023. In between, she’s traveled and taught and painted and is back in Brattleboro – a perfectly drawn full circle.
Program Update: In light of the reduced funding allocation for the Brattleboro Town Arts Fund, we have decided to postpone the launch of the 2025 application cycle until January 2026, effectively combining this year’s and next year’s application process and funding resources.
While the Brattleboro Selectboard voted in April to restore $15,000 for the Town Arts Fund in the revised FY26 Town budget, the finalized budget that was sent to and approved at Representative Town Meeting in May included an additional reduction of $5,000 from the TAF program, for a final award of $10,000 for FY26.
Putney, VT—This June Yellow Barn, in partnership with Next Stage Arts, brings Nannerl Mozart, the “other” Mozart, to southeastern Vermont.
The Other Mozart is an award-winning play telling the true, forgotten story of Nannerl Mozart, the sister of Amadeus – a prodigy, keyboard virtuoso and composer, who performed throughout Europe with her brother to equal acclaim, but her work and her story faded away, lost to history. Set in a stunning 18-foot dress, The Other Mozart is based on facts, stories and lines pulled directly from the Mozart family’s humorous and heartbreaking letters.
The Brattleboro Arts Committee will meet on Tuesday, May 27, 2025 at 5:00pm at the Brooks Memorial Library.
Throughout the month of June, local artist and teacher Lynn Zimmerman presents Watercolor Discoveries, a group show of work by her students at the Crowell Gallery in Newfane. These 20 women artists, who have studied with Lynn in her online classes, will share a variety of paintings in watercolor. Most of the artists are local, although a few live elsewhere in the U.S. Each artist will share a discovery made while exploring this challenging and rewarding medium.
LISSA WEINMANN is a powerful force in our community who has helped bring our history, people and stories together through the creation of The Brattleboro Words Project and 118 Elliot arts center. Tune in for some great stories of her other lives as a foreign agent and in international and local affairs.
Composer KEANE SOUTHARD creates unique musical experiences in a wide range of styles and topical issues. His most recent composition “Requiem for Animals” pays homage to the animal beings of the earth and premieres May 17 & 18 at Persons Auditorium at Potash Hill, performed by the Brattleboro Concert Choir. Tune in to hear Keane’s unique perspectives on music’s power to evoke positive change.
The NXT Gallery at Next Stage Arts welcomes a new exhibition, Art Array, featuring the evocative work of Vermont-based artist Ricky McEachern. The show opens with a public reception on Thursday, May 29, from 6 to 8pm, and will remain on view through August 11.
A recent transplant from Boston, McEachern is no stranger to the visual richness of New England. His oil paintings, many based on his own photographs, reflect a deep connection to the region’s layered history and striking diversity—ranging from gritty urban centers to tranquil shorelines, forgotten mills to majestic mountains.
JO DERY is a visual storyteller who thrives in community-based collaborations. She creates animated films, comics, books, multi-media performances and more. “Adoption Stories” is her most recent project inspired by her own lived experience.
