Arts

On Friday and Saturday, April 28th and 29th Sandglass Theater will present the first full work-in-progress showing of Babylon at Next Stage Arts Project at 7:30pm, with an additional fundraising event for the Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program on Friday after the show. Babylon is a piece about refugees: their journeys, traumas, and challenges to resettlement. Performed by puppets and actors with moving panoramas, known as crankies and with choral singing. Sandglass has been developing this piece for nearly two years, and will begin touring in Autumn of 2017.

Mitchell • Giddings Fine Arts is pleased to present “Before Words”, an exhibition of steel sculptures by Torin Porter running from May 4th to June 18th. An opening reception will take place on May 4th at 5pm. An Artist Talk is set for June 10 from 5-7pm.

On Saturday, April 15  from 7:30-9:00. The Williamsville Hall presents the 1928 French silent film “The Passion of Joan d’Arc” featuring the premiere performance of an original soundtrack performed live on piano by Dan DeWalt.  Admission is by donation and will raise funds for the Williamsville Hall. The Hall is located off of Route 30 in Williamsville (across from the Eatery).

Drawing from the Visible World, an exhibition of works on paper, paintings and sculptures by JASON ALDEN, PAUL BOWEN and MYLES DANAHER will be on view from Friday, April 7, 2017-Thursday, April 27, 2017 at 118 Elliot Gallery. The opening reception is on Friday, April 7, 2017 at 6:00 PM. The gallery is located at 118 Elliot Street in Brattleboro, VT. Gallery hours: Thurs.-Sat, 2-6 PM.

Guilford Center Stage opens its third season at Broad Brook Grange, not with a play, but with a square dance, on Saturday, April 8, at 7 pm.  The event is a benefit for the Grange’s resident theater company, and features Bob Livingston, caller, with the Falltown String Band.    Admission is $10 for adults, $5 for kids 12 and under,  and maximum for a family is $25.  

Mitchell • Giddings Fine Arts is excited to offer a very special Artist Talk with David Rohn this Saturday, March 25 from 5-7pm. Rohn is the feature of the gallery-wide exhibit David Rohn Watercolors 1974-2016, running from March 16-April 30.

On March 18th at 11am and 2pm Sandglass’s beloved Winter Sunshine series begins with Double Image Theater Lab. I Laid an Egg is an original piece inspired by a dream the co-creator Margot had as a child. Margot goes on an adventure with her imaginary pal, Egg, in a world made of shadows and household items. A nonverbal, interactive show filled with many unexpected surprises and discoveries, I Laid an Egg bears elements of Shadow Theater, Object Theater and music, inviting the audience into a child’s realm of make-believe. It presents a poetic imaginative journey for the child in all of us.

West Brattleboro – Through the end of April, the foyer and other gallery spaces at All Souls Church (ASC) are featuring a group show of mixed-media, watercolors, and pastels by members of the Brattleboro Brush & Palette Painters and Saxtons River Art Guild. Participants include Carolyn Albee, Bob Askey, Barb Borek, Dawn Chattin, Maisie Crowther, Nancy DiMauro, John Dimick, Kathy Greve, Mike Hanley, Karen Hesse, Deedee Jones, Molly Martin, Patricia McPike, and Lois Reynolds. Some of these artists are members of both groups.

March is Student Art Month in Windham County. spotlights and gives public recognition to the outstanding visual art created by our elementary, middle school, and high school students. Make sure you don’t miss the 2017 displays in Downtown, Brattleboro and at Brooks Memorial Library.​

March 16 – April 30: Mitchell • Giddings Fine Arts is proud to feature a retrospective of watercolor paintings by Vermont painter David Rohn in David Rohn Watercolors: 1974-2016 . For the first time, MGFA will devote the entire gallery to a single artist with this exhibition of over thirty-five paintings. An opening reception is set to take place Thursday, March 16 at 5, with an Artist Talk scheduled for Saturday, March 25 from 5-7pm.

BRATTLEBORO – With an up-cycled twist on basket weaving, a three-part workshop – taught by local artists Jackie Abrams, Jen Wiechers, and Janette Smuts – will benefit the Groundworks Food Shelf. The workshop, which takes place on three Thursday evenings (March 30, April 6, and April 20) at the River Gallery School’s Main Street Studio in Brattleboro, will cover the art of making ‘yarn’ from used plastic bags to crochet strong, colorful, and multi-purpose tote bags.

PUTNEY VT- On March 18th at 11am and 2pm Sandglass’s beloved Winter Sunshine series begins with Double Image Theater Lab. I Laid an Egg is an original piece inspired by a dream the co-creator Margot had as a child. Margot goes on an adventure with her imaginary pal, Egg, in a world made of shadows and household items. A nonverbal, interactive show filled with many unexpected surprises and discoveries, I Laid an Egg bears elements of Shadow Theater, Object Theater and music, inviting the audience into a child’s realm of make-believe. It presents a poetic imaginative journey for the child in all of us.

Mitchell • Giddings Fine Arts presents an Artist Forum, complementing the large group show Spring Visions on Saturday, February 25, from 5-7pm. The Forum will feature gallery artists Matt Brown, Torin Porter, Donald Saaf, and David Holzapfel, with introductions by gallery owners Petria Mitchell and Jim Giddings.

Printmaker Matt Brown,  from Lyme, New Hampshire, creates work in the Japanese hanga method, utilizing separate hand-carved blocks for each color. From Glover, Vermont, sculptor Torin Porter explores “humanness” in his imaginative, stylized steel figures. Fine Art and Folk Art intersect in the collage paintings of Marlboro artist Donald Saaf. Also from Marlboro, wood artist David Holzapfel’s structural forms celebrate the imperfections, personalities, and inherent beauty of wood.

So like a mirror is the sea/So vast the vault above, an exhibition of works on paper and poems by JULIA ZANES featuring text from the work of F. Hopkinson Smith, will be exhibited at The Emblem Museum, 21 Elliot Street, 2^nd Floor, Brattleboro Saturday March 4, 2017-Saturday, April 22, 2017. The opening reception is on Saturday March 4, 2017 from 2:00-6:00 PM.

Save the date! Join former Library Director Jerry Carbone and his touring companions, Arthur and Carol Westing (Putney, Vt.), on January 28, at 3 PM, in the Library’s meeting room, for a talk on a recent hiking trip to Italy’s famed Sorrento peninsula. The group hiked and toured the area for two weeks in November. The slide presentation will include views and topography from the ancient trails and mule paths that line the limestone Latarri Mountain range and Tyrrhenian Sea.

Mitchell • Giddings Fine Arts is pleased to announce a special “Winter Group Forum“ to take place at the gallery Saturday January 7th at 5pm. This Forum will be a “roaming style“ talk facilitated by gallery owners Petria Mitchell and Jim Giddings. Included will be MGFA’s most recent gallery artists Torin Porter and Anne Johnstone, as well as gallery artists Jackie Abrams, Will Finkel, Michele Ratté, Donald Saaf, and Chris Triebert.

Torin Porter, a sculptor from Glover Vermont working primarily in steel, engages our imagination with his playful, stylized figures. Painter and collage artist Anne Johnstone from Somerville, MA works in mixed media, oil, and wax to create dramatic works that use distortion and exaggeration to convey a curiously heightened emotional response. Jackie Abrams, a fiber artist from Brattleboro, explores themes of the feminine form and experience through her woven vessels. Will Finkel is a ceramic artist from Brattleboro whose glazes capture the colors and wonder of natural phenomena.