Studio tours highlight Brattleboro, Marlboro art
WINDHAM COUNTY - The Vermont Craft Council’s fall Open Studio Weekend, on Saturday and Sunday, October 2, and 3, will include four craftspeople and a gallery.
Participating sites will be open to the public from 10 am to 5 pm each day, in a variety of indoor and outdoor settings. Visitors will have the chance to see demonstrations, purchase handcrafted items, talk to the professional artisans who made them, and see the environment where their creative work happens. Local tour stops include:
1. Vermont Artisan Designs, an indoor gallery at 106 Main Street, Brattleboro, will be an information center for the annual fall Open Studio Weekend. In addition to having a great sampling of Vermont-made craft and fine art, they’ll be happy to direct visitors to participants in the tour.
2. Orchard Street Pottery, at 658 Orchard Street, Brattleboro, will display work by owner and potter Walter Slowinski in the newly constructed pavilion. This will offer a safe, lovely, rain-protected outdoor setting. His forms are functional and wheel-thrown, altered in various ways, often highlighting the malleable, fluid nature of the moist clay, or referencing natural forms. Slowinski’s ware is notably fired in a kiln fueled with wood, the ashes of which he uses to decorate the pottery.
3. Naomi Lindenfeld Clayworks, at 330 Meadowbrook Road, Brattleboro, will display and sell unique colored clay pottery and new earthenware double-walled vessels, along with reduced price seconds and clearance pieces. Naomi is inspired by a love of dance and by patterns in nature; her work expresses the rhythms and textures of movement. She will be doing periodic demonstrations of her clay techniques.
4. Chris Lann Designs, at 1420 Sunset Lake Road, Brattleboro, employs techniques used since the dawn of metalsmithing to create pieces of wearable art that are at once organic and contemporary. From twigs and branches that seem to have grown to fit your body, to delicate hand-knit silver and gold chains, each item is made individually, completely by hand.
5. Matthew Tell Pottery, at Potters Hill Road, Marlboro, will reveal all stages in the clay-making process, from the soft clay that Tell spins on the wheel into a pot to the finished piece. Walk around his studio and enjoy his garden with outdoor pieces for sitting and contemplation.
To ensure safety during the pandemic, visitors are asked to wear face masks in all indoor spaces.
For profiles of member artists and more information about Brattleboro-West Arts visit www.brattleboro-west-arts.com, which hosts an interactive map of the local stops. Tourgoers can pick up guidebooks with maps at any participating site statewide.