Friday Night

Friday night the art stars turned out again for another fun reception at Staart. Friday's featured artists included Jane Bower, Chepe Cuadra, Clair Dunn, Mary Fletcher, Kimberlee Forney, and Ellen Powell. The house was so packed I had to crank the AC a little lower! Several artists made some sales so I would call the night a great success! A few photos from the event below…

Chepe, right, chatting with a fan, Oren Lane, center.

Kimberlee with her mom…

Jane's abstract watercolors have been flying off the shelves!

Reminder: Artist Reception

Don't forget tomorrow night!!

Back to School

Well, the summer hopefully isn't over as far as the weather goes, but the gallery's summer hours have come to an end. I hope everyone got the chance to take advantage of our daytime hours during the summer months. But don't dismay, we're still open during the hours posted below, with plenty of time during the weekends! Please support your local artists!!

Current Hours:
Monday & Tuesday - Closed
Wednesday - 4 - 7 pm
Thursday - 4 - 7 pm
Friday - 4 - 7 pm
Saturday - 12 - 6 pm
Sunday - 12 - 6 pm

Artists: Familiar Faces

Several of our artists have returned for our summer display period and shouldn't escape the art enthusiast's radar. Several have brought new pieces to display for the season, so please visit us to see what's new. Also visit their page at the gallery's website store…

Harald Aksdal

Deborah Benoit

Robert Chaperon Jr.

Karen Day-Vath

Clair Dunn

Kelly Duprat

Mary Fletcher

Kimberlee Forney

Mary Ann Duffy Godin

Barbara Hamm

David Juaire

Suzanne Kenyon

Nelson Parker

Stina Plant

Artist: Ellen Powell

Ellen Powell's name may be familiar to jazz enthusiasts as she has been a bass-playing fixture on locals stages for several years. She now adds art photography to her repertoire with several framed and unframed pieces on display at Staart. Ellen will be one of the featured artists in the upcoming reception to be held on August 22nd. More details on that soon…

"Ellen Powell grew up in rural Massachusetts and came to Vermont in the summers of her childhood. She made Vermont her permanent home in 1969 at the age of nineteen, and over the years she lived in the southern, central, and northern rural areas of the state. She settled down in Chittenden County in 1985 and currently resides in S. Burlington. Music has always been a part of her life. She studied piano formally for 15 years in her childhood and sang with her high school chorus in Symphony Hall in Boston several times. After arriving in Vermont she learned banjo and played professionally in central Vermont. She became a professional singer for a few years in the 1970s. She eventually became a jazz bassist, mostly self-taught. In 1989 she studied jazz bass with master bassist Cecil McBee in New York City for a year, funded by a study grant from the National Foundation for the Arts. She was a founder of and has played in all Burlington Discover Jazz Festivals and her jazz group was featured on NPR’s Jazz Set. She currently plays Thursdays with the best area jazz musicians at Leunigs Bistro in Burlington. For thirty years and probably before that, Ellen has been seeing “great shots” all over the place and it has been one of her dreams to take pictures. Using the format of film in photography was beyond her means. She would have wanted to learn the dark room and while she was busy building her career as a jazz bassist, there was no time for anything else, so photography was put on hold. Then came the onset of digital cameras. Ellen finally bought herself a little point+shoot digital camera in May 2007 and began taking pictures, having a great time. From seeing images on serious photography websites, she soon learned about Digital SLR cameras and in August she got herself one. She took a course in photography and has been joyfully clicking away ever since."

Artist: Longina Smolinksi

Longina Smolinksi is the third member of the shared display at Staart also featuring Lisamarie Charlesworth and Tinka Martell. It's amazing how the work of these three friends ties in so nicely together. Smolinksi's paintings on display are vibrant and textured and exhibit the boldness that can be seen in her other work. Check out the others in the series but also stop by the gallery to see two of  her paper clay sculptures that are on display in our window. 

"Art is entirety. For me, fulfillment lies in expressing myself through diverse mediums and creative approaches. Thus, I do not feel any strong commitment to one particular method of expression over another. Although my art education focused on sculpture and design, currently my work varies between painting, making sculpture and designing ceramic and glassware. Painting in the abstract allows me these spontaneous moments of escape to a place where there are seemingly no rules. I use bright colors. I experiment mixing paint until it is a thick paste, working with layers of color and paint, mixing it with wax or other medium, applied to canvas, paper, even the walls in my home. When making paintings, I look for questions, I reflect upon my current emotion or I simply become lost in the comfort of the colors I am painting. With clay, I assign a tangible form to motifs that exist outside my everyday surroundings. Built from layers of coils, sculpted pieces begin to form from the bottom to the top until a finished form emerges. Although unintentional, my sculptures are decidedly feminine in form. Recently, I have begun to experiment with paper clay and acrylic paint as a top coat instead of glazing or leaving the surface plain. After all, I do enjoy color! My work reflects the immediacy of the present – neither reminiscing in the past nor moving towards the future. It is entirely me. Here. Now."