The Power of Perspective | 2024 community art show

A hawk is silhouetted against a pale sky, seen from beneath flowers. Title: Hunter. Fabric, embroidery by Sarah Ashe. Copyright © 2024 and used with permission. #PowerOfPerspective

The Power of Perspective: shifting points of view

The Birds of Vermont Museum has been hosting themed community art shows since 2014. Each winter, the staff develops a bird-related theme for the exhibit and invites submissions in varied media: visual arts, the written word, sculpture and more.

Our 2024 art show, The Power of Perspective: shifting points of view, poses and answers questions of how our bodies, ideas, and assumptions might alter or affect what we perceive, think about, imagine, and understand about birds.
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Call to Artists: Power of Perspective

The Power of Perspective: a shifting point of view

How do we focus our creative “vision”? Consider the scope of an eagle’s eye—the narrow view of a gleaning warbler—the shadowed sight of a loon underwater. We may see birds above us from the ground, or below us from a plane. We may use a camera lens to record from afar, or a magnifier and lamps to perceive what is normally unknown. How does time influence your perspective? What if we “zoom out” from one bird to a species, to an ecosystem, to a planet? What if we “zoom in” to one bird to its wing, to a feather, to a gene?

How does your art reveal a point of view?
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Spark! fueling a love of birds | 2023 community art show

The Birds of Vermont Museum has been hosting themed community art shows since 2014. Each winter, the staff develops a bird-related theme for the exhibit and posts a Call to Artists, inviting submissions in varied media. Our 2023 art show, Spark!, brings together well over 60 artists, photographers, and poets of all ages. Most artists are from Vermont. Continue reading “Spark! fueling a love of birds | 2023 community art show”

Fine Feathers, at play with structure and function | 2022 community art show

collage of polaroid photos of submissions to Fine Feathers art show

Our 2022 art show, Fine Feathers, features over 70 works, chosen from over 250 submissions from artists, photographers, and poets. Each piece is inspired by birds and their feathers. The creators are influenced by feather colors, shapes, patterns, and functions. Through illustration, painting, textile, collage, photography, sculpture, and the written word, these creative expressions are as varied as the feathered creatures they depict. Continue reading “Fine Feathers, at play with structure and function | 2022 community art show”

Call to Artists: Fine Feathers

Fine Feathers:
at play with structure and function

What happens when you mix art, playfulness, and insights from birds? Creativity influenced by feather color and pattern, frills and function! From bower birds to city pigeons, feathers come in thousands of sizes and colors, fantastic shapes, in different seasons, and for many reasons. Which of these emerge in your art? We want to know!
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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”

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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”