NEWPORT — The MAC Center for the Arts and the Memphremagog Watershed Association will host an art exhibit featuring farms and waters of the Memphremagog Watershed.
Resident artists and visiting artists at all levels are painting at many sites around the Northeast Kingdom through the NEK Plein Air painting group to document today’s landscapes that contribute to tomorrow’s history.
The opening will take place Friday, September 9, from 5 – 7 p.m. The exhibit will run through the September 30. This is a free event and open to the public.
Painting sites include views of local waters and views of soil and water conservation practices at four farms that are working with the Orleans County Conservation District.
This exciting art project includes highlighting strip cropping and grassed waterway in corn fields, grazing and laneways in pastures, and Riparian Forest buffers conservation practices that reduce soil erosion by water; increase infiltration and available soil water; and improve habitat, water quality, visual quality of the landscape and farm community relations.
Strip cropping is arranged on cropland across the general slope so that equal widths of grass strips are alternated with annually tilled cropped strip. Grassed waterways are generally planted to perennial grass in annual crop fields and are constructed to convey runoff from low spots where concentrated flow areas where ephemeral and gully erosion control is needed.
Artists and community members will learn about these local field based conservation efforts and all the participating farmers will receive a framed print of one of the paintings.
To become a member, an artist simply needs to join their meetup.com group at http://www.meetup.com/Plein-Air-Northeast-Kingdom/ to receive notices of our planned paint-out meetups.
For more information about the exhibit, visit www.maccenterforthearts.com.
