External Exhibitions

Greg Nicolai, photographs

Nicolai’s goal is to take something that he photographs and turn it into something that is more interesting. As much as he enjoys the end result, he enjoys the process even more. Forms, shapes and patterns, no matter what the environment, create the initial interest. Black and white photographs seem to emphasize and intensify these details. Color is used only if it helps to further define the subject. He feels finding the best composition is a fun challenge, and discovering that elusive element which animates a photograph is the reward.

Jordan Douglas: Images of Havana, silver gelatin lith photographs  (pictured)

The photographs in this exhibition are fragments, extracted from a storied city and its vibrant culture in January of 2015. Douglas was particularly inspired by the dense neighborhoods of Central Havana–with their crumbling layers of history and the boisterous rhythms of people, music, songbirds, and pre-Revolution car engines. He was graciously received by the Cubans he encountered in the sunny streets and mazes of apartments, alleys, and courtyards.

All of the shots were captured on black-and-white film, of varying speeds, and lith-printed in the darkroom in limited batches. Lith printing is an alternative development technique that causes an explosion of the image grain and a shift in color toward warm brown tones. No two prints are the same. The images were printed on Forte Polywarmtone paper, last made in Hungary nearly 20 years ago.

Casey Blanchard (pictured)

Primarily a self-taught artist, Casey explores her experiences through the engaging and often unpredictable print medium of monoprinting. She is most interested in the spiritual aspects that emerge in the image, particularly relating to how we live in the world and how the world lives in us. In the beginning, the work may be a search for answers, but in the end it's more about being here without them.

Casey Blanchard was born in Greenwich, CT in 1953. She lives in Shelburne, VT with her husband, Dan Cox, and their daughter, Julia Cox. Her artwork is found on the walls of health care facilities, private residential collections, corporate offices, the hospitality industry, on web designs, and various published materials.

Johanne Durocher Yordan    

Johanne is a Burlington based artist who works out of her studio on Pine Street. She was born in Quebec, Canada, but has lived most of her life in Vermont. It was not until 1998 that Johanne began committing herself to her artwork and finding her own voice. She studied at the University of Vermont and has since developed a diverse body of work that is a testament to her ability to succeed as an independent artist. Creating work that fits a variety of audiences, while always building upon her unique self-taught style, is the secret to her success. Johanne has always been the type of person who explores on her own, tapping into the unknown and developing her own fashion and techniques. Many of her paintings include found or collected items which add depth and meaning to combine form and function to her work. Her abstract work captures her emotions and represents her unique style and expression. Johanne has exhibited her work extensively throughout Vermont in both solo and group exhibitions over the past 12 years.

Cameron Schmitz

Cameron Schmitz grew up in Greenwich, Connecticut and spent idle time in her youth drawing. Encouraged by two artistic parents, including her mother who is also a painter, she learned at a very early age the joy and satisfaction of participating in the visual arts. 
Schmitz holds a Master of Fine Arts in Painting from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting & Drawing from the University of New Hampshire, in addition to studying Art and Art History at Studio Arts Center International in Florence, Italy. 

Following a month-long artist residency at the Vermont Studio Center in 2006, Schmitz moved to Vermont after discovering Vermont's rugged landscape to be uniquely inspirational. Now located in the Brattleboro area, Schmitz actively exhibits her work regionally and nationally. Her work has been featured at Fitchburg Art Museum's biannual exhibition, Ne England/New Talent, Green Mountain College, Kyoto Seika University in Japan, Emory University, Northern Arizona University Art Museum, and Rogue Space in Chelsea, New York. Her work is represented by The Drawing Room Art Gallery in Cos Cob, CT and Furchgott Sourdiffe in Shelburne, VT, and she is an artist member of the Copley Society of Art in Boston. In addition to her painting practice, Schmitz is also the Gallery Curator of The Drawing Room Art Gallery and teaches painting at the River Gallery School in Brattleboro, VT.

Carl Rubino
 
I strive to create unique interpretive, impressionistic and abstract images that relate my personal vision of or reaction to the subject matter before me.   Before I even pull out the camera I try to experience all that my subject reveals, or even what it makes illusive – not just the obvious, like the literal view, the colors, texture and patterns - but the less obvious sensual aspects, the energy and the “feeling” that it conveys. Whether in landscape, abstract, street photography, fine art nude or whatever else captures my interest, I seek to find and interpret life’s visual symphonies, one click at a time. 

I feel that to a large extent my photographs consist of three different points of view: the raw material that is the literal subject matter of the image that my camera captures; what I see, sense, and work to portray when I interpret that subject; and what the viewer sees when looking at the image on the wall.  Those may be three very distinct views of what is essentially rooted in the same thing.   That, to me, is stimulating art.  And that is a great part of what draws me to photography.

Jeff Schneiderman 

Jeff Schneiderman works as a wedding, portrait and fine art photographer in Williston, VT.  He has been taking photographs for over 35 years, traveled extensively throughout the U.S. and the world and has made Vermont his home for the last 27 years. Patterns are a major theme in Jeff’s work as he is fascinated with the designs in nature how they are reflected in things manmade.  More of Jeff's work can be seen at: www.jeffschneiderman.com."

Krista Cheney

Krista Cheney is a native Vermonter, currently living in St. George, Vermont. She studied English Literature and Agricultural Economics at the University of Vermont. She has studied photography since 2003, taking classes and workshops at local venues and the Maine Media Workshops in Rockport, Maine.

Carolyn Enz-Hack

Carolyn Enz-Hack's work includes painting, sculpture, and scenery design. While she has spent most of her life on a farm she holds a degree in theatrical design from Rutgers University and has spent years designing for the theatre. Her rural sensibility is informed by themes explored in ancient theatrical and religious literature, and by developments in cross-disciplinary Science. Each piece is an attempt to process the exterior world through an internal lens. Her most recent solo exhibitions have been at the Castleton Downtown Gallery in Rutland, Vermont, and Creare Inc. and the Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center both in Lebanon, New Hampshire. She is the recipient of a Vermont Arts Endowment Award, a painting merit award from the Chaffee Center for the Arts, a residency at the Vermont Studio Center, and her work has been selected for exhibition in regional and nationally competitive shows.

Erinn Simon

Erinn Simon is a fiber artist and yarnbomber. She crochets tapestries, toys, baby mobiles, vegetables, baked goods, blankets, scarves for trees, and the occasional bloodthirsty zombie cupcake. Her work has appeared in group shows in Burlington, Seattle, and Australia and she ships her one of a kind creations to customers around the world. She lives in the Old North End of Burlington with her husband and three kids. You can find her on facebook as Callie Callie Jump Jump.

Brian Drourr: Celestial Skies

Celestial Skies features a selection of images by Vermont artist Brian Drourr, who for the past twelve years has been photographing the star trails, Milky Way, and solar eclipses of rural Vermont and New England. These stunning images of the night sky – known also as astrophotography – convey the sense of awe and wonder the artist encounters when outdoors observing the evening stars. Using a combination of digital SLR cameras, tripods, and the ubiquitous camera phone, the artist shares with viewers the exhilaration and sense of being present amidst the starlit heavens. As stargazing has become less accessible to urban residents due to light pollution, astrophotographers such as Drourr must often travel to remote, dark-sky locations so as to create images for others to experience. 

Celestial Skies is scheduled to coincide with the total solar eclipse visible in Burlington, Vermont on April 8, 2024. As a source of mystery and fascination, solar eclipses – whether foreboding omens or inspirations for scientific discovery – have captivated imaginations for millennia. Brian Drourr’s dramatic imagery conveys the excitement and power of this rare event that creates darkness from day, as the artist shares with us the sublime beauty of the night sky that so defines human experience.
 

Presented as part of Obscura BTV, the City of Burlington's official total solar eclipse.

Elizabeth Nelson, acrylic paintings (pictured)

Northern Vermont has been the foundation for fifty years as Nelson explores the colder climate and landscapes of Vermont, Iceland and Norway in her paintings. The paintings are comments on the beauty of these harsh environments and their fragility as our climate changes. Storms, immense peace and sometimes unearthly beauty are expressed in a call to protect the fragile balance of our lives with the changing earth.

Born in New York City and raised in Connecticut, Nelson began painting when she was eight. She graduated from Rhode Island School of Design and then lived in Guatemala for a year. After receiving a Master’s degree at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, she lived in Massachusetts and now has lived in northern Vermont for over fifty years where she raised her children. She has been a teacher, dairy farmer, museum curator and always a painter. She has exhibited throughout Vermont and New England as well as in juried shows in Reykjavik, Iceland, Wisconsin, New York, Kentucky and Pennsylvania.

Nelson is represented by Furchgott Sourdiffe Gallery in Shelburne and currently has additional works on exhibit there. Please pay them a visit if you’d like to see more!

Michael Farnsworth, photographs

As a native Vermonter, Farnsworth was raised in nature. Before he could even walk, his father had stuffed him in his backpack & summited Mansfield, Camel's Hump, and many other mountains. In grade school (SCS), this passion for the outdoors manifested in countless drawings of trees, mountains & lakes. Then in high school (CVU) he turned to painting landscapes. Finally, as an adult he pivoted to landscape photography, and for the last 17 years he’s been honing his craft.

In 2019 he took his passion on the road, building out a Mercedes Sprinter Van and heading west. He’s been living nomadically in his van ever since, going where the most beautiful photography is possible, and selling his work at arts festivals. He has spent a lot of time around campfires gazing up at the night sky, staying in very remote places far from city lights & seeing the Milky Way stretched across the vaulted heavens. He finds it so enchanting out there in the dark. Last year he headed north to Alaska. There he finally saw the Aurora Borealis, which took his breathe away and felt like a major check mark on his list of photography desires. He was then fortunate enough to see an annular solar eclipse in Oregon last fall. On April 8th when the Total Solar Eclipse moved slowly across North America, he was in Texas, in the center of the path of totality, camera in hand, for the experience of a lifetime.