Expanding Voices: perspectives on birding | 2021 community art show

Watercolor painting (excerpt): shows a white woman in a yellow shirt looking upward through binoculars. The point-of-view is from above, so only her head and arms are clear.

Our 2021 art show, Expanding Voices, explores and reflects the past year. Visual arts, poetry, 3D, and prose pieces capture the variety of solitudes, connections, race issues, changes and changelessness, new skills, and understandings we  experienced in 2020.

Forty artists, photographers, writers,  and poets had their work selected for this year’s show. They range from under 10 to over 80 and speak from their varied experiences of birding, the pandemic, faith, and social issues.

Visitors are invited to explore the visual and written art at their own pace, to be inspired, to ask questions, and to browse through the book of artists’ statements.

Show runs through October • Included with Museum admission

Many of the originals are for sale, and several artists have prints, cards, and other items available in our gift shop.

About the theme “Expanding Voices: perspectives on birding”

Continue reading “Expanding Voices: perspectives on birding | 2021 community art show”

Call to Artists: Expanding Voices

Text: Expanding voices: perspectives on birding / Background: rose-sepia toned image of paintbrush tips against foliage and sky

Expanding Voices

perspectives on birding

A Call to Artists from the Birds of Vermont Museum
The year 2020 asked a lot of us—and taught us even more. As our habitual systems hit rock bottom under the weight of the pandemic, economic hardship, and social injustice, voices rose, and long-time institutions were loudly questioned. New ways of experiencing and perceiving our world opened our minds to new comprehension. How could our art, our creativity, our practices remain unaffected? Our perspectives inevitably changed.

We are a museum about and for birds and conservation. We are part of a community of birders, artists, conservationists, and learners. Your experience and perspective may be unseen or unknown to someone else, even in the same community. For 2021, we’d like to hear and share your artistic voice.

What perspectives exist for birds, birding, and conservation, and the possibilities these offer? We seek works that explore many viewpoints for our 2021 art exhibit, Expanding Voices: perspectives on birding. Continue reading “Call to Artists: Expanding Voices”

Volunteers needed in 2020

Young man with rake tending the Museum's gardensOne of our favorite things to do is work with volunteers on special projects—regularly in the building and outside in the gardens, as well as special volunteer work parties before our “open season”. This year, unfortunately, the novel coronavirus  interrupted this! But now we are open, so…

We would love to have volunteers in and around the Museum! This is completely up to you and what you find comfortable. As always, we have lots of projects and need your help!

Indoors, volunteers greet visitors, tend the gift shop, organize materials, record data, and help us clean.

Outside, there are opportunities for trail maintenance, collecting natural history data, sanding and painting, and weeding. We have a few projects that can be done off-site. We could also use the help of a carpenter. It is pretty easy to maintain social distancing and get fresh air while you do these!

If you are interested in volunteering this year, please call us at 802-434-2167. We look forward to hearing from you!

Borders: illusions that constrain us | 2020 community art show

Flyer for art show -Borders: illusions that constrain us- showing planet earth from space on a black background. Show of art, photography, poetry open June- October 2020.

Borders: illusions than constrain us is our 2020 art show, where we invite creators and viewers to ask (and even answer) “What do borders mean for birds and which of these are constructs of our imagination?”

Thirty-six artists, photographers, and poets had their work selected for this year’s show. Creators include beginners and established professionals of all ages. Visitors are invited to explore the visual and written art at their own pace, to be inspired, to ask questions, and to browse through the book of artists’ statements.

Show is open through October • Included with Museum admission

Some originals are for sale, and some artists have prints, cards, and other items for sale in our gift shop as well.

About the theme “Borders: illusions that constrain us”

Continue reading “Borders: illusions that constrain us | 2020 community art show”

Museum Installs a Little Free Library

the Little Free Library at the Birds of Vermont Museum
The Little Free Library at the Birds of Vermont Museum is installs on the side of a shed right near the entrance path.

Built of an upcycled Wood Duck nesting box, the Birds of Vermont Museum’s Little Free Library (LFL) is now up and open to the public. It is easy to get to: on a shed wall near the entrance path to the Museum. In keeping with a nesting motif (that is, slightly hidden), and wishing to keep some of the weather off, volunteer Erny P., 85, attached our LFL under the shed’s eaves. Erny also did the remodeling of the box, adding a door and a shelf for smaller books. The clear window gives a sneak peek at what’s inside.

Continue reading “Museum Installs a Little Free Library”

Call to Artists: Borders

Borders: illusions that constrain us [a call to artists]

Borders

illusions that constrain us

A Call to Artists from the Birds of Vermont Museum

What borders do birds encounter? Our maps do not typically reflect the territories they perceive, the ranges they travel, or the barriers they comes across. How do birds’ boundaries connect to human borders? To those of other species? Edges of things—physically, spatially, temporally— raise questions, not least of which is “Is it really there?”

We ponder this, wondering, how do and will these encounters and connections alter us, birds, and the borders themselves?

We seek works that share visions of birds, borders, and boundaries, now and into the future, for our 2020 art exhibit, Borders.

Continue reading “Call to Artists: Borders”

Pollinate This! 2019 community art show

Thumbnails of art accepted for Pollinate This show

Pollinate This! is our art show asking and sometimes answering “How can art explore, examine, and express pollination—metaphorically and otherwise?”

Thirty-four artists and photographers had their work selected for this year’s show. Creators range in age from child to senior, with experience from just starting to established professional. The works are displayed in thematically-linked groupings, and visitors are invited to explore at their own pace, to be inspired, to engage with the images, and to browse through the book of artists’ statements.

Show is open from May 1 to October 31, 2019 • Included with Museum admission

About the theme “Pollinate This!”

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Call to Artists: Pollinate This!

Pollinate This!

art inspiring seeds of conservation

A Call to Artists from the Birds of Vermont Museum

We wander in gardens, foster habitats, explore ecosystems. Life buzzes, entwines, fosters, interacts—one species to another and another and another. Birds and insects and plants thrive together. Can we pause, notice? Can we let the outside in, become as intimately connected to the world around as a pollinated plant is to its pollinators?

We seek artworks that explore, examine, and express pollination—metaphorical and otherwise—for our 2019 art exhibit, Pollinate This!

Continue reading “Call to Artists: Pollinate This!”