When Opportunities Credit Union moved to Winooski, their CEO Cheryl Fatnassi just knew she wanted to do something to shine a spotlight on Downtown Winooski and to bring people to the area. She asked Jodi Harrington what could be done and she asked Ric Kasini Kadour who had the idea of using the vacant spaces to turn Downtown Winooski into an instant gallery district: Just add artists.
"On behalf of the City of Winooski, I am pleased to welcome you to our beautiful downtown...."
Amy Rahn in Seven Days writes, "Within the stark white walls of the Falls Gallery in the temporary Winooski Pop-up district, a coterie of emerging artists is exhibiting work with a certain spark. Across from the door of the artist-curated space hang 10 large-scale photographs from Heather Gray’s “Pin-Up” series. In contrast to their sedate black frames, the Vermont artist’s images of cheeky rural babes exude humor and a jaunty spirit that’s perfectly in tune with the uptown/downtown sensibility of the pop-up space...."
5:30PM, July 28th at Stoplight Gallery Kate Longmaid is a psychologist, creativity coach, and artist who specializes in helping people pursue their creative potential and live more vibrant, creative lives. Kate will present steps you can take to enhance your creativity and overcome practical, emotional, and existential barriers that you may encounter in the creative process.
every Thursday in July, 7-9PM at Stoplight Gallery. Calling all poets come to the Stoplight Gallery in Winooski to recite your work or just come and get inspired by some awesome poets and the art work in the gallery.
Thursday, July 21, 6 PM at Welcome Gallery. FREE. Winooski artists Leslie Fry, Kathleen Schneider, Jane Kramer, Bill Davison, Dan Higgins and author/state senator Philip Baruth give a talk about their artwork and their relationship to Winooski.
Saturday, July 23rd, 1 to 3PM at Falls Gallery. This event is FREE. Artists will lead art activities for kids & young people. Kids will make 2-dimensional art work (painting, collage, drawing) and get to take their creations home with them. Sweet treats will be provided by Winooski Falls Market & Deli.
Friday, July 22th, 5-8PM at Stoplight Gallery. Come check out the soulful folk music of Jamie Bright "Silent Mind" play an exclusive solo acoustic show.
Saturday, July 30th, 1PM. Starts at Falls Gallery. This event is FREE. Artist & Art Educator Amanda Vella will lead this art tour for kids. Sweet treats will be provided by Winooski Falls Market & Deli.
Saturday, July 30th, 1-2PM at Top Gallery. This event is FREE. Local eco-artist Anne Cummings will lead an eco-art making workshop for children. Sweet treats will be provided by Winooski Falls Market & Deli.
The Winooski Pop-up Gallery District is open till 6PM on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, but the fun doesn't have to stop then. Downtown Winooski has a great restaurant scene and is perfect way to make an evening out of your visit.
Northeast Kingdom photographer Bethany Bond continues to explore intuition and ideas of the cyclical nature of life and interconnectedness in her new series,"Transcend", at The Block Gallery and Coffeehouse in Winooski, with an opening reception on July 1st and continuing to July 31st.
Inspired by sunsets, Jane Kramer combines "brush strokes with impression from paint on cedar shingles to abstract the play of light on water, trees, and sky."
Andy Brown says, “I love to create and watch others create—my grandmother quilting, my brother smithing a shoe, a print coming to life in the developer. These touch my soul. A life-long learner, my body of work now includes digital color and black-and-white photography and digital painting.”
Ceramic artist Andy Snyder says about his work: “I know I have been successful when someone says, ‘Man, I bet you had fun creating that piece!’"
“I jump around between street photography, abstract, portraiture, landscape and anything else that happens to present itself," says Jessica Beaudoin.
In the process of restoring furniture and antiques, artist Kelly McMullen-Fekert reconceptualizes the forgotten, the neglected, the cast-off. She uses decoupaged paper and fabrics along with layered paint techniques too add small touches—and extreme makeovers—to everyday household objects.
"Ceramics has been a wonderful adventure," says Laura Baum. "My travels to Japan inspired me and pottery has become something I love. It brings beauty into our lives, through everyday objects. The ceramic art community has become my new family in Vermont.”
Leslie Fry uses traditional methods, including drawing, modeling and casting with materials that range from paper and plaster to concrete and plastic, to create decidedly nontraditional works.
“I am fascinated by the colors that surround us as we habitually live our lives,” says Amanda Vella. “In my creative process, I become absorbed by the ritual act of mixing colors and putting them to canvas. The infinite variety and uniqueness of color that surfaces while I am absorbed in the act of painting is simply sublime.
Kathleen Schneider’s sculptures are fabricated from ordinary materials (wire, deconstructed artificial flowers, printed paper, fabric, plaster, etc.) into colorful conglomerate forms that combine abstract and recognizable elements and imagery.
“The monotype prints I make depict minute and discrete evidence of hunting locations I am familiar with: watershed areas, bays, islands, and land points that are part of Lake Champlain’s configuration,” says Bill Davison.
A Winooski resident since 1969, artist Dan Higgins makes photographs that connect with and celebrate the underlying social dynamic of communities, beginning with his own.
Cody James Brgant says about his installation, Trees, "my intention is to display the juxtaposition of man-made materials/forms to nature's material/forms, while alluding to the tensions derived by the two."
When Jason Galligan-Baldwin found a box in storage labeled “Jason’s crap", filled with childhood drawings of astronauts and poorly-received term papers, he saw it as a new artistic undertaking.
Decaying mortar becomes the jagged edges of natural rockcliffs, and a mossy river boulder is transmuted into a perilous mountaintop overlooking the ocean in artist Timothy Cohalan’s photography. Through the clever placement of ceramic objects, small forgotten corners of the earth are transformed into vast landscapes.
Kylie Dally views "the process of creation as an active conversation. On one level it is a conversation with the medium itself, and on another level it is a conversation with the greater pool of human thought, creation, and experience.”
Katie Harrington’s work is composed of brightly colored brush strokes. Her lines suggest architectural design, while their curvature resembles the gradual stresses of gravity on metal beams and frameworks abandoned mid-construction.
No matter what Sarah Jumonville is working on, whether it be a functional piece or an exquisite sculpture, it’s the beauty of the form that draws the viewer in, but it’s the intricate details that bring them in for a closer look.
Will Patlove's stretched, painted canvases interact with surrounding light and respond to subtle environmental shifts as well as changes in the viewers physical orientation to the work. They serve as tools, pointing out aspects of light and aspects of the way we see.
Longina Smolinski's abstract paintings and clay sculptures are products of spontaneous moments of inspiration. Her bright canvases are heavily textured, utilizing encaustic (wax) to give them dimension.
Winnie Looby's work develops from an interest in the sciences, and her personal research of the collective unconscious. Paintings, illustrations and sculptures are delicate pieces often presented on paper, cardboard and unstretched canvas.
Brian Zeigler's works are fragmented and dizzying, minimalistic in color choice and geometrically abstract. Found and created images are fastened onto paper, then drawn and painted over. Zeigler seeks to show the value of opposite and equal qualities and how they transform one another.
Whether it’s poetry inspired by the 2010 Gulf Oil Spill, or cookware that implores its owner to fill its cavities with bready goodness, Katie Dyer’s pottery is just at home on gallery walls as it is in the pantry.
Alex Constantino works successfully in a variety of media: ceramics, paint, pencil, print, video, and installation. His art is often in service of an idea. He explains, “Creating for me is an opportunity to satisfy a curiosity- what would the world look like with this in it?”
Inspired by the versatility—and not to mention, affordability—of papier-mâché as a medium in its own right, Francesca Werenko has leapt from the theater stage to the gallery floor.
