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Confluence Lantern Paddle

Lanterns, image courtesy Gowri Savoor.Something very cool is happening on the West River this month! Join a lantern lit paddle at the confluence of the West and Connecticut Rivers or come watch from the riverside. The Lantern Paddle is part of an extensive program of community events around the Confluence Project. Don’t miss out on this joyful parade of lanterns and luminaries to celebrate our rivers on Friday, May 25, 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm.

For details and to register for lantern making workshops and the Lantern Paddle, visit the Vermont Performance Lab events webpage.  This flotilla will incorporate the handmade lanterns made by the community at workshops with artist Gowri Savoor on May 15, May 17 and May 19. Sign up for lantern making workshops at the River Gallery School. Participants are encouraged to join the paddle on land or water.

Co-organized by the Vermont Performance Lab and the Connecticut River Conservancy.
Sponsored by The Marina Restaurant & co-sponsored by the Vermont Canoe Touring Center.

From the Vermont Performance Lab website: The Confluence Project is an ambitious experiment in creative place-making that demonstrates an in-depth model for bringing arts, youth, community groups, regional planners and educational institutions to the civic dialogue table to take an interdisciplinary approach to the study of watersheds.

 

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American Painter Milton Avery and the West River

Milton Avery (1885–1965), Blue Trees, 1945. Oil on canvas, 28 × 36 inches. Neuberger Museum of Art, Gift of Roy R. Neuberger, Purchase College, State University of New York. © 2016 The Milton Avery Trust / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Milton Avery (1885–1965), Blue Trees, 1945. Oil on canvas, 28 × 36 inches. Neuberger Museum of Art, Gift of Roy R. Neuberger, Purchase College, State University of New York. © 2016 The Milton Avery Trust / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

This is the last weekend to catch the Milton Avery exhibit at the Bennington Museum.The exhibition brings together dozens of the paintings, watercolors, and drawings Avery made on family visits to the West River Valley region of Vermont between 1935 and 1943. Read more at – https://www.incollect.com/articles/green-mountain-idylls-milton-avery-s-vermont.

Excerpt from article:
A humorous anecdote related by Sally Avery about her husband’s painting Blue Trees provides insight into the tension in Avery’s works between their formal qualities, their emotive power, and their dependence on subjects drawn from the real world. She related how a business tycoon, wanting to buy a painting, made a studio visit; nothing pleased him. Looking at one landscape, he exclaimed, “That tree is blue—I never saw a blue tree in Vermont.” To which Avery replied, “This was New Hampshire.” In fact, the painting, which the tycoon acquired, was based on studies executed in Jamaica, Vermont, looking south into the West River Valley from the slopes of Ball Mountain, into the area that is now largely occupied by Jamaica State Park. https://www.incollect.com/articles/green-mountain-idylls-milton-avery-s-vermont.

Photo credit: Milton Avery (1885–1965), Blue Trees, 1945. Oil on canvas, 28 × 36 inches. Neuberger Museum of Art, Gift of Roy R. Neuberger, Purchase College, State University of New York. © 2016 The Milton Avery Trust / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.