Arts and Entertainment

NEWPORT — The MAC Center for the Arts is getting ready for their final exhibit for 2019, titled “FACES.”

The opening reception is Friday, December 13, from 5-7 p.m. in the Downstairs Connection.

This is a free event and open to the public.

As Kurt Vonnegut once said, “We are what we pretend to be. So, we must be careful what we pretend to be.”

Faces can be represented in various ways.Faces are everywhere.

Whichever way we see and are seen, recognized or not, the profile or headshot evokes emotions well beyond what emojis could possibly capture.

This subject is open to multiple interpretations and they will all be on display by a plethora of MAC artists as well as art on loan in mixed media, clay, bronze, oil, 2D, 3D, fiber and jewelry.

All are on display until January 4, 2020.

This exhibit is curated by Victoria Mathiesen, Andrea Strobach and Arlene Goldberg.

Come enjoy the juxtaposition of emotions captured, aesthetics created, and ethereal atmospheres FACES can conjure in MAC’s 2019 FINALE exhibit, located at 158 Main Street, in Newport.

For more information call 802-334-1966, or visit www.maccenterforthearts.com.

NEWPORT — The MAC Center for the Arts will be showing a new exhibit in the Downstairs Connection entitled “Owls Talking to You,” by renowned award-winning nature photographer, Elinor Osborn.

The opening is Friday, November 8, 5-7 p.m.

Osborn’s stunning work will also include a 30-minute talk, Owl Vocalizations, and a Q&A.

This is free event and open to the public.

In her own words, “Photography enables me to see details of nature which remain hidden from casual observation. There are so many exciting aspects of plants, animals, weather phenomena etc. to find and learn about, that I enjoy being outdoors more than anything else, especially here in Vermont….My photography includes a variety of outdoor subjects, including natural history, scenics and outdoor sports—cross country skiing and sled dogs.”

Using a digital camera and computer, she enjoys creating both traditional photo prints and creative “Art Image” prints.

All are giclée prints that she brings to life on glossy, fine art or metallic papers.

She was the 2009 winner in Nature’s Best Photography Backyards Contest sponsored by Nature’s Best, the most prestigious nature photography magazine in the U.S. Magazines, such as Vermont Life, Click, Cross Country Skier, Stowe Guide, Northern Woodlands, Vermont Sports, Vermont magazine, VT Sports and many books have published my photos.

Watersheds United Vermont just used her river photo for a cover for Living in Harmony with Streams.

Project UltraSwan, (a children’s book published by Houghton Mifflin), which she wrote and photographed, tells the story of the trumpeter swan migration project following ultralight aircraft.

Her pictures have been published in a plethora of books including Second Atlas of Breeding Birds of Vermont, Peterson-Hummingbirds of North America, Ortho-All About Attracting Hummingbirds and Butterflies, Weisel-Cross Country Ski Vacations, The Nature Conservancy National and many more.

Come meet this fascinating world-class photographer at the MAC Center for the Arts, 158 Main Street, Newport, November 8th.

The exhibit runs through December 7th.

For more information, www.maccenterforthearts.com or call 802-334-1966.

NEWPORT — The MAC Center for the Arts is getting ready to host an opening reception celebrating the extraordinary work of renowned artist, Victoria Mathiesen.

The event will take place October 4, from 5:00 -7:00 p.m. in the Downstairs Connection.

“Notably, a retrospective looks back, and at a certain age looking back seems to be more a part of life than looking forward though that is not exactly true if you are a painter,” Mathiesen said.

Mathiesen works in both oil and watercolor, switching between both as need dictates.

Architecture, particularly that of her first home in the UK, has always provided a rich source of beautiful structures and an insight into the artist’s past.

“The idea that I can recreate on paper aspects of a thousand-year-old cathedral or a five-hundred-year-old cob cottage is simply astounding to me, and something I treasure deeply,” Mathiesen said.

This is her first exhibition at the MAC Center for the Arts since joining after moving permanently to Vermont many years ago.

“Someone remarked somewhere that all you had to do was hang a camera out the window and you had a beautiful picture,” Mathiesen sais. “I can’t remember who said it, but it is true, in all seasons but one. Fortunately, mud season is relatively short. It is also untrue of myself since for me photography is a means to an end, and not an end in itself, something I am constantly reminded of when I see the beautiful work of photographers. Painting, however, is the end in itself. Living here in this lovely environment provides a different way of seeing the world and one which I attempt to convey in what I do.”

This is event is free and open to the public. The Exhibit runs thru November 2, 2019.

For more information, visit www.maccenterforthearts.com, or call 802-334-1966.

NEWPORT — MAC Center for the Arts is getting ready to present their first annual “Musings and Music” series, which they promise will “illuminate the colors of your world audibly.”

The event will take place on September 22, from 2:00-4:00 p.m. at the United Church of Newport.

Everyone is welcome to come explore and enjoy this unique afternoon of readings by MAC Center authors and poets, as well as music by their gifted MAC performers.

Come hear the colors of Jerry Johnson, Patty Oliver-Smith, Ron Lavalette, Susan Sanders, Isa Oehry, Peggy Sapphire, Dianne Laplante, and Mark Creaven, as they share their insight, humor, and poetry as well as Janice Luce, Ben Luce, Ben Kinsley, Linda Schneck, and Deb Wesoja performing vibrant music that will provide a myriad of kaleidoscopic sounds.

Emcee for the afternoon show is Lynn Leimer.

MAC Center for the Arts is a local non-profit and is fundraising to create an ADA compliant venue for our community at their158 Main Street Gallery.

The organization says that community support of this event is appreciated and donation is tax-deductible.

For more information,visit www.maccenterforthearts, email macartspr@yahoo.com or call 802-334-1966.

NEWPORT — The MAC Center for the Arts will be opening a new exhibit, ANECHOIC, by sculptor Sterling Trail.

The opening reception takes place on August 23, from 5-7 p.m. in the Downstairs Gallery, located at 158 Main Street, in Newport.

A truly unique title, ANECHOIC, defined as free from echo, artist Sterling Trail describes his work as ”focused on aesthetic.”

“Aesthetic is how an object is made, the choices made by the maker to uncover a cohesive form,” Trail said. “I hope that my works capture a balance. I hope that the reader will either find an understanding in my work or an aesthetic enjoyment.”

Trail’s work is distinctive and one of a kind. His art is the reimagining, repurposing, and redesigning of hardscapes.

“I see discarded machines, their vacant husks laying scattered, partially submerged in the annual sediment of the summers now past. These machines are the corpses of function, returned to the earth, devoid of a conduit beyond the artist’s appreciation for their form. I can’t tell you what these forgotten things will be tomorrow or the day after, all I can tell you is what they were made from,” he explains.

“I have made the journey down the old road, through trees and shallow puddles to another world that is divided by an intersection. The world I seek is obscured by a vacancy of necessity; it was left behind by its previous stewards who only dealt in abandonment. Now all that remains of the ritualistic discarding of functionless articles are the remnants of machines and structures, submerged under accretions and deposits made annually by the silent sentinels of the forest.”

This sculpture exhibit is a first for the MAC Center for the Arts and celebrates emerging artists.

Curated by Victoria Mathiesen, Andrea Strobach and Arlene Goldberg, MAC has hosted several exhibits this season by touring artists, members, and invited artists.

These exhibits are free and open to the public.

Stop in to see this extraordinary display of modern art. ANECHOIC runs through September 22.

For more information, please visit www.maccenterforthearts.com or call 802-334-1966.

NEWPORT — As a special presentation on the final weekend of the MAC Center’s stunning exhibition “Blue: an Exploration of the Colour,” local artist, filmmaker, and MAC Center member Bradleigh Stockwell will present a lecture about “Yves Klein: The Man Who Invented Blue.”

This event will take place on Saturday, August 17, at 2:00 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.

When he died in Paris in 1963 at the age of 34, Klein was a successful artist and poised for international fame.

In his brief career, he created many of the performance and artistic techniques which would become standard practices in the decades to come.

Among his most notorious was creating art in front of an invited audience as musicians performed.

More important was his creation of a special type of blue paint, now known as International Klein Blue.

Klein made it his artistic signature, applying it to large canvases, sponges, sculptures, massive murals, and even models who became, in his words, “living paintbrushes.”

The MAC Center exhibition includes a large work created with “IKB.”

Mr. Stockwell’s lecture will include a live demonstration of this hue.

Also on the program: a fascinating filmed interview with Klein’s widow, Rotraut.

This film is being shown by special arrangement with Denmark’s Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Humlebæk, Denmark.

Please note that this half-hour film contains brief, artistic, but explicit female nudity.

Gallery hours at the MAC are Mon-Sat 10-5 and Sun 10-6.

For more information visit http://www.maccenterforthearts.com or call 802-334-1966.

NEWPORT — The MAC Center for the Arts is inviting the public to come experience total immersion into the color blue, by joining them at their latest exhibit, “BLUE – An Exploration of the Colour.”

The exhibition opens on June 28, inside the Downstairs Connection at the center, with a reception from 5:00 – 7:00 p.m.

Works in several disciplines will be shown, all of which will represent a personal interpretation of the color blue.

Come out and experience the blue of the painter, the weaver, the jeweler, the potter, and the photographer. 

The exhibit is free and open to the public and runs through August 19 and is open 7 days a week, Monday through Saturday, 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and Sunday 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.

For more information visit www.maccenterforthearts.com or call 802-334-1966.

NEWPORT — Vermont’s Breakfast on the Farm comes to the Maxwell’s Neighborhood Farm this Saturday, June 22 in Newport.

This is the first time the event has been hosted in the Northeast Kingdom.

This free, public event includes a Vermont-style pancake breakfast featuring local products, a self-guided tour of the farm including 14 educational stations, and a peek into the life and business of dairy farming in Vermont.

Media are invited to see first-hand how the farm cares for their cows, creates renewable energy, enhances their community, supports their employees and protects the environment.

Over 1,000 visitors are expected, including agricultural leaders, educators and industry representatives including.

On site will be three generations of the Maxwell family, owners and operators of the Maxwell’s Neighborhood Farm and their employees interacting with the public, Dr. Julie Smith, DVM, PhD, UVM Department of Animal and Veterinary Sciences UVM Extension agronomists and specialists, as well as over 100 volunteers from the agricultural community.

The event will take place between 8:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. and the Maxwell’s Neighborhood Farm is located at 213 Maxwell Road.

NEWPORT — Locally renowned tenor Allen Cubit will present a special concert spotlighting Robert Schumann’s, Dichterliebe, on June 1, 2019, at 7:00 p.m. at the United Church of Newport.

He will be accompanied by the extraordinary pianist, Vivian Spates.

Cubit is well known professional tenor that has graced the stages in the Northeast Kingdom, Canada, and beyond.

He has sung with the Vermont Philharmonic, was a soloist in concert with the acclaimed John Weaver, one of America’s finest concert organist, as well as having sung with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and performed at the iconic Carnegie Hall.

There is something distinctive about the combination of classical music, romantic themes, and the tenor voice that evokes a sense of overwhelming joy. Robert Schumann is a genius as a composer/lyrist in this realm.

Dichterliebe is one of his best-known works and highlights the poetry of Heinrich Heine in a 16-song cycle which takes the singer and listeners on a journey of a person who is mourning lost love and overcoming the heartbreak that inevitably follows.


“This work is not just a soloist with an accompaniment, as Schumann himself was an accomplished pianist,” Cubit said. “We find a balanced interplay between voice and piano taking the themes and telling the story of love throughout the work.”

It is truly a full collaboration on the part of the artists. Spates is a featured and integral performer in the presentation.

The duo has been rehearsing for several months and will round out the evening’s concert with a cache of eclectic songs, including pieces by Beethoven, Donaudy and Carissimi.

“I enjoy the beauty of Schumann’s music and I am excited to share that beauty with my local community,” Cubit said.

The concert is free and open to the public, however, donations are greatly appreciated.

For more information cubitallen@gmail.com or Click here for the event page on Facebook.

NEWPORT — MAC Center for the Arts presents Gabe Tempesta’s solo Exhibition entitled Selected Paintings with an opening reception on Friday, May 24, 2019, from 5:00 – 7:00 p.m. in the MAC’s Downstairs Connection.

The opening is free and open to the public.

To highlight Tempesta in his own words:

“Being born and raised in the Vermont landscape has given rise to the current scope of my artwork. I am continually inspired by the natural landscape while exploring at home or while traveling and look to capture and celebrate that with my paintings. My formal education is from Montserrat College of Art where I studied illustration. After training and pursuing a career as an illustrator as a matter of practicality for ten years I felt an urge for more creative freedom in the form of fine-art landscape and wildlife painting.


My black and white paintings have evolved from a charcoal and watercolor mixture to oil paint. I recently switched to oil paint in order to more easily mimic the lens effects of photography. I love the process of capturing an image through a camera lens with pixels then bringing it to life by hand with paint. Early on I considered pursuing photography as a career until this was superseded by my passion for drawing and painting. Now I feel I have come to a balance between the two.
I leave out the color in my paintings in order to focus on composition, form, and contrast and to engage in a more simple and direct creative process. I strive to create a fresh approach to traditional landscape painting where I look for dynamic vantage points in which to portray common features of the landscape and the wildlife within it. I want the viewer to be familiar with what they see but to get the feeling that they ‘haven’t quite seen it like that before.”

The exhibit will continue through Saturday, June 22, 2019, and can be seen from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. during regular business hours.

For more information visit www.maccenterforthearts.com or call 802-334-1966.

NEWPORT — The MAC Center for the Arts will share a posthumous tribute to the late Manfred Rieder starting this Saturday, April 27, from 10:00 – 5:00 p.m.

The tribute will display a selection of Rieder‘s works, housed in the MAC’s newly named space, the Downstairs Connection.

In Manfred Rieder‘s own words:

”My fantasy structures are the result of being brought up by my grandparents and after my grandmother’s death when I was eight years old by grandpa alone. He was a well-known Austrian architect and from an early age taught me how to draw and paint and then had me assist in making his architectural dioramas and models for his clients. The love of architecture has never left me and now I express it through my little houses and scenes. I have always been fascinated by any form of transportation, from trains to cars, to airplanes and ships and I try to incorporate some of this in my work as well. I only use found wood, unwanted articles and everyday items I find in my shop or in the woods.”

Rieder‘s talent was not limited to the wooden creations, he also produced hundreds of pen and ink or pencil drawings, paintings, clocks, and many more.

All of the wooden diorama’s are for sale and will benefit the MAC Scholarship Fund which is given annually to graduating seniors pursuing any arts discipline in college.

It was his wish was that his legacy is hallmarked by this largesse.

The unique showcase will be on display April 27 through May 23 during regular business hours.

The exhibition is free and open to the public.

It should be noted that these items are handcrafted and for indoor display only.

The exhibition runs in concert with Portraits in Action – 25 Vermont Pioneers in renewable energy, environmental conservation, and land use planning.

For more information, visit www.maccenterforthearts.com or call 334-1966.

NEWPORT — The MAC Center for the Arts will host a special exhibition from Vermont Folklife entitled “Portraits in Action.”

The opening reception will take place on April 12, 5:00 – 7:00 p.m. in the lower gallery on Main Street, in Newport.

The exhibition presents 25 Vermont pioneers in renewable energy, environmental conservation, and land planning in photography and text, and runs through May 18, 2019.  

The event is free and open to the public.

For over a decade, the Vermont Folklife Center has been exploring the roots of the environmental movement and renewable energy in Vermont, documenting an evolving course of action that extends from the mid-1960’s to the present.

Since this arc of activity has occurred within living memory, it has been possible to seek out and speak with the very people whose work has been an engine of change.

Seventy-two interviews later, “Portraits in Action” presents twenty-five Vermont pioneers in renewable energy, environmental conservation, and land use planning.

This diverse cross-section is intended to be suggestive rather than comprehensive, recognizing that there are many more whose work has also made a difference.

The exhibit pairs portrait photography and interview audio as a way for visitors to thoughtfully connect with each person featured.

Image and audio are linked to personal statements written in response to the question:

“What will bring us to the next level in meeting the energy and environmental challenges we are facing today?”

In our current political environment, consensus on the defining issues of our era continues to elude us.

“Portraits in Action” offers the opportunity to spend time with a group of people who have been thinking hard about many of these issues over the course of their working lifetimes.  

For more information, visit www.maccenterforthearts.com, or call 802-334-1966.

Courtesy photo from Vt Folklife: Archival photo of Don Mayer (center) pictured with Mr. & Mrs. Eldy Schragg, who were responsible for teaching him about the Jacob’s Wind Generators. Photo courtesy of Don Mayer.

NEWPORT — The MAC Center for the Arts will be holding a writing workshop, Saturday, March 16, from 1:00-4:00 p.m.

The workshop is called “The Power of the Personal Metaphor: A Memoir and Poetry Workshop.”

Come discover how personal metaphors inspire the creation of poetry and memoir.

Whether your interest is in writing poetry or prose, this workshop will delve into the ways metaphor and figurative language work to express the power of our individual experiences and emotions.

In the workshop, the group will use short writing exercises and spend some extended writing time to explore, develop and extend metaphors into poetry or prose.

This workshop will also be relevant for visual artists who use metaphorical imagery in their work.

The workshop will conclude with volunteers sharing their work.

The workshop is limited to 15 participants, ages 14 years and older.

Pre-registration is suggested by March 13.

Registration forms can be found online or by stopping in at the MAC Center for the Arts.

For more information, call 802-334-1966, or visit the website www.maccenterforthearts.com

You can also email pattyos@earthlink.net