Author: Blackstone Valley Art Association

mage by Alexandra Spano

Our Ninth Annual BVAA Sunflower Show is the lucky way to enjoy golden beauty! Our Sunflower art show is held at the amazing local bookstore / gift shop / cafe Booklovers’ Gourmet.

Where?
The sunflower art show is held at the:
Booklovers’ Gourmet
72 E Main Street
Webster, MA 01570

BookLoversGourmet.com

About the Show
If there ever was a flower which symbolized glorious summertime, the sunflower is the one. Did you know that nearly all of the 70 species of sunflowers are native to North America? They can grow to be up to six feet tall and they even tilt as the sun moves so they always face it!

The Blackstone Valley Art Association is celebrating this sun-shaped delight with a sunflower show throughout the month of August at the Booklovers’ Gourmet in Webster. Come on out to appreciate the artistic visions and explore the shop’s offerings!

Submissions

The JPG email submission deadline for the sunflower show is Sunday, July 26th, 2025. We have limited wall space at the Booklovers’ Gourmet for 18 items sized around 16×20. The art doesn’t have to be exactly that size, but in that general range. Smaller is fine; massive 4′ by 8′ murals will not fit.

What we’ll do is have each member submit two JPGs of artwork via email to info@bvaa.org they’d like to include. If we get too many for the available wall space we’ll do a Facebook vote. All submissions will be in the virtual version of the show.

This show is open to all BVAA members and is FREE to participate in. This is not a judged show – it is primarily a visibility and sales opportunity. We pretty much sell artwork every year we hold this show. Note that Booklovers’ Gourmet is a book and small gift shop. The art that sells tends to be in the $40-$80 range, not the $300-$500 range. That being said, feel free to enter whatever art you’d like that is sunflower-themed. You never know what will catch a visitor’s eye!

Any sales will include a 30% commission taken by the shop. The BVAA takes no commission on this show. Full BVAA terms: BVAA Show Terms and Conditions

Drop-Off
The drop-off for the Sunflower Show is Wed July 30th and Thu July 31st between 10am-5pm. Items should be dropped off directly at the Booklovers’ Gourmet shop. If you can’t make either date, contact Lisa Shea and she’ll arrange something. The Booklovers’ Gourmet shop will take care of hanging and labelling the items. Please make sure that the back of EVERY art piece is labelled with your name, the artwork title, its medium, and price. That way Deb knows what labels go with what pieces.

Public Reception
Our sunflower show Artist’s Reception will be on Wednesday, August 13th from 5:30-7pm. Please plan on attending! Invite family and friends! Share the news!

Pick-Up
Pick-up for the show is Thursday August 31st from 12 noon to 5pm. If you can’t make it, let Lisa know and she’ll get your art for you.

Theme
This show is all about sunflowers! Anything related to sunflowers is fair game. Photography, paintings, drawings, sculptures, mosaics, you name it! Look through the artwork from previous years to see how other artists have tackled this theme.

Here’s a virtual walkthrough of our 2023 Sunflower Art Show so you can see what the space is like –

Here’s a look at previous shows, to give you some ideas!

Photos from 2017 Sunflower Show

Photos from 2018 Sunflower Show

Sunflower Show 2019 – Image Collection

BVAA Sunflower Show August 2020 – Images

BVAA Sunflower Show August 2020 – Images

BVAA 2021 Sunflower Show Photos

BVAA 2021 Sunflower Show Photos

The Blackstone Valley Art Association is sponsoring our seventh annual “Show of Hands” open art show! The public is warmly invited to participate in this art show! The theme is completely open. Your art can represent anything. This show is open to all forms of artistic expression EXCEPT photography / digital art. It is the counterpoint to our photography-only show in January.

We would love to see watercolors, acrylic paintings, oil paintings, sculptures, pottery, mixed media, drawings, pastels, colored pencils, sketches, and other non-photographic / non-digital forms of artwork.

All levels of artists are enthusiastically encouraged to participate. This is a community show. You do not need to be a BVAA member to enter artwork into this show.

We award cash prizes!

When:
August 2 to September 6, 2025

Where:
BVAA Open Sky Uxbridge Community Gallery
5 South Main Street
Uxbridge, MA 01569

There is a LOT of free parking immediately next to this building. It is fully and easily handicapped accessible.

BVAA Alternatives Uxbridge Community Art Gallery Information

Entering the Show
The theme is wide open. You can represent ANYTHING with your art. Any topic can be addressed as long as it is family-friendly and is not photography / digital art. Artwork can be any size. That being said, please contact us first if you plan on bringing anything over 20″ x 30″ in size. We need to arrange for space for those separately.

All wall-hanging items must be properly wired for hanging. Our hanging system does not work with saw-tooth or triangle hangers. If you are new to preparing artwork for shows, read our page on How to Mat and Frame a Photo. Please also check out our Show Terms and Conditions

Submissions
To submit your entries use our BVAA Online Submission Form. The fee to participate is $15 for members and $20 for non-members. You can submit up to 2 pieces for that fee. The deadline to submit the online form for labels is Saturday August 2nd at midnight.

Drop Off of Works
Work must be dropped off on Saturday, August 2nd between 10am and 3pm. Please only drop off at that specific day and time – it is when BVAA volunteers are at the gallery. All work which is brought in will be displayed in the show (as long as it is family-friendly and, if hanging on a wall, has proper wiring).

Opening Reception
The show reception will be Friday, August 8th, 2025 from 5-7. Invite family and friends – all are welcome! We tend to announce the prize winners at 6pm, right in the middle. We award cash prizes based on the amount of entry-fee money the show brings in. All the money that comes in for the show goes right back out to the people who win awards in that show.

Pick Up
Saturday, September 6th, 2025, from 10am to 3pm. If you aren’t able to make that, contact us for other arrangements.

Address any questions via our BVAA Contact Information

Ask with any questions! We look forward to seeing your entries!

Full 2025 BVAA Uxbridge Gallery Art Show Schedule

Video from 2022’s Show of Hands art show:

Here’s the first ever Show of Hands art show in 2017 –

Thank you for the support from:

It’s our seventh annual Carbon Copies show! The Blackstone Valley Art Association is sponsoring a delightfully fun art show all about fakes, forgeries, and parodies!

Carbon Copies – Imitation is the Sincerest Form of Flattery

This Carbon Copies show is for all BVAA members to participate in. The idea is to find a famous work of art and then duplicate it! You can duplicate it exactly or you can add your own fun twist to it. You can paint a version of a Roger Fenton photo. You can stage a photo which resembles a Vermeer painting. Maybe you paint Mona Lisa as a cat.

The sky’s the limit!

The submitted artwork doesn’t have to be a painting. You can use digital art to poke fun at a famous photo. You can stage a model to resemble a historical sculpture. You can arrange a photo scene of Legos to mimic a Japanese woodblock. It’s up to you.

Note that the source art needs to be in the public domain. In general that means it needs to have been created before 1929. Art which is under copyright, after 1929, has its rights controlled by that artist. You would need to ask that artist for permission to use their work in any exhibit.

When:
July 12th to August 2nd, 2025

Where:
BVAA Alternatives Uxbridge Community Gallery
5 South Main Street
Uxbridge, MA 01569

There is a TON of free parking immediately next to this building. It is fully and easily handicapped accessible.

BVAA Alternatives Uxbridge Community Art Gallery Information

Each BVAA member may exhibit up to three artworks.

Entering the Show
The entry fee for the Carbon Copies show, open to all styles of artwork, is $8/piece or $20 for three. You can submit up to three pieces.

Artwork can be any size. That being said, please contact us first if you plan on bringing anything over 20″ x 30″ in size. We need to arrange for space for those separately.

All art must be family friendly and properly wired for hanging. Our hanging system does not work with saw-tooth or triangle hangers. If you are new to preparing art for shows, read our page on How to Mat and Frame a Photo. Please also check out our Show Terms and Conditions. This includes all details including the 25% commission for any sales of exhibit artwork in the gallery. You may also choose to have your artwork listed as not for sale.

All art items which are entered are hung. There is no “pre-selection” process where some are accepted and others are rejected. If you submit artwork, and it is family-friendly and wired properly, it will be part of our show.

Some reading material:
Creating Art Based on Another Artist’s Work
Fakes Forgeries and Parodies – The Terms
How Easy is it to Copy a Famous Painting?
Inside the Underground World of Legal Art Forgery

Submissions
To submit your entries use our BVAA Online Submission Form. The deadline to submit is midnight on Saturday, July 13th, 2025. To submit your entries use our BVAA Online Submission Form. Work must be dropped off on Saturday, July 13th, 2025 between 10am and 3pm. All work which is brought in will be hung (as long as it is properly wired and is family-friendly). If you have one, please bring along a printout of each of your source artwork items, so we can hang those alongside your artwork. That way visitors can see what you were working with. If you don’t have printouts, let us know the artist & work title and we’ll track down and print those out for you.

IN ADDITION!!

We would love to feature previously seen fakes and forgeries to be a part of this show! It will let us demonstrate the full breadth of the fun of this process. Any previously seen art items are FREE to participate. They just won’t be judged for cash prizes. Please bring in as many of the previous items as you’d like! The more the merrier!

Judging
We are doing this as a PEOPLE’S CHOICE voting! Get your votes in!

Opening Reception
The opening reception is at the Uxbridge gallery on Friday, July 18th, 2025 from 5-7pm. Please bring a snack or drink to share! All are warmly encouraged to attend!

To see what the Carbon Copies vibe is about, check out these videos from our previous shows!

Address any questions via our BVAA Contact Information

Ask with any questions! We look forward to seeing your entries!

This Uxbridge gallery is supported in part by BVAA member dues, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, and by ValleyCAST. The space use is kindly donated to us by ValleyCAST, the community outreach department of Open Sky Community Services. Open Sky uses this space for special-needs client activities during daytime weekdays. They allow the BVAA use of the space – and its gallery walls – on evenings and weekends. We actively support their inclusive mission. All are welcome to all of our events and activities!

Summertime is a busy time for many of our artists, so we keep our summer workshops light and fun.

The workshop will involve Carol Frieswick’s book and card set “The Artist’s Muse – Unlock the Door to Your Creativity”. There are bunches of cards with all sorts of challenges and prompts to get you thinking out of the box with your art. We’ll have watercolors, paper, and brushes on hand. If you have a preferred medium feel free to bring along your own paints, pencils, or camera. We will tackle the creative challenges with whatever we like to work with. Or, heck, if you normally work in one media, try changing over to another to see how it goes!

If you’d like to bring in a few of your works in progress, we’re happy to offer friendly ideas and suggestions on them!

Our summer meetings are casual and drop-in. Come and leave whenever you want, and work on whatever projects you’d like. 

Our June 2025 monthly meeting will be held on Tuesday, June 17th from 6:30-9pm.

Location:
BVAA Open Sky Uxbridge Community Gallery
5 South Main Street
Uxbridge, MA 01569

The space is fully handicapped / disability accessible with no stairs. It is immediately next to a large free parking lot. There is a bathroom.

This meeting and workshop is free and open to the public. No experience is necessary. The fun of our workshops is that we all try new things we’ve never done before.

Our meetings cover BVAA organization business from 6:30-7:00pm and then go into the workshop part of the evening. Feel free to come for whichever half interests you the most. In general, our monthly meetings are held on the third Tuesday of each month unless otherwise announced.

All are welcome – this workshop is open to members and non-members. Feel free to bring along a friend! We’d love to see you there to try some new things and explore your creativity!

Ask with any questions!

Our meetings are supported in part by grants from the Massachusetts Cultural Council.

Here are the winning artists from our 2025 Blackstone Valley Art Association Series Show! The judge for this show was Ella Delyanis. Each series was judged ‘as a unit’ and the prize is given to the entire series. A ribbon just happens to be on one piece of those three. Click on any image to see it full sized.

First Place / Tory Kohn / sketch and oil paintings
Judge: beautiful attentive drawing of the figures, wonderful sense of movement, great light, unified color palette.

Second Place / Ellen Gould / oil paintings
Judge: beautifully drawn and painted, great light, lovely harmony of color.

Third Place / Leslie Breault / acrylic paintings
Judge: very interesting, original, highly skilled technique. Works well as a triptych.

Honorable Mention / Mike Blake / photography
Judge: great design and color choices.

Lisa’s notes: Mike didn’t color these, he took a dozen photos over the hour of the sunset and then selected his favorites. He used vertical slices to create a triptych.

Honorable Mention / Michele St. Pierre / gouache, colored pencil, and collage.
Judge: interesting use of media, original, great sense of movement.

Honorable Mention / James Hunt / photography
Judge: beautiful value range, fascinating observation.

Honorable Mention / Bev Tinklenberg / oil painting
Judge: beautifully loose painting style with a unified design.

Congratulations to everyone who participated in our series show!

BVAA 7th Annual Series Art Show 2025

Want to learn more about taking interesting photos with your camera or cellphone? Join us on June 27th 2025 from 2-4pm for our photography workshop at Worcester Common next to Worcester City Hall! All levels of photographers warmly encouraged to participate. This event is open to the public.

The cost of the photography workshop is $5 each.

We will meet at the Worcester Common, by the turtle fountain at 2pm. Photographer Lisa Shea will provide a brief introductory discussion of ideas for taking photos of textures and patterns. Then we will explore the Worcester downtown from 2-4pm. You can roam on your own, stay with the group, and ask questions whenever you wish. Feel free to come early or stay late!

Event is RAIN OR SHINE. If it’s rainy we’ll go into the Worcester City Hall which is right up against the common.

Location:
Worcester Common / Worcester City Hall
455 Main Street
Worcester, MA
(lots of parking at the Worcester Public Library, kitty-corner to the common)

Date and Time:
Friday June 27, 2025
2-4pm

Please be sure to RSVP to join the group. Let Lisa know what type of cellphone or camera you plan on bringing. Lisa can then send you a PDF of ideas to get you started. If you don’t have access to any cellphone or camera, we have a few we would be able to lend for the afternoon.

Register for Photo Workshop

Let us know if you have any questions!

Please consider then sending in a few of your texture or pattern photos to participate in the ValleyCAST virtual art show. This show has a deadline of Sunday, June 29th, 2025!

ValleyCAST Art Show

Supported by the BVAA, ValleyCAST, and Open Sky.

Come join us in Whitinsville, Massachusetts on Saturday, June 21st, 2025 from 11am to 3pm! RAIN OR SHINE! All are welcome as we set up on site and paint a painting of a mill building – what’s known as a plein air painting. The Whitin Mill complex was built back in 1826 and at one point was the world’s largest maker of machinery for textile mills! Now it is home to Alternatives and the Singh Theater.

There is a large free parking lot both adjacent to the mill and also immediately across the street. You can bring your own cameras, sketchbooks, and painting supplies if you wish. For those who don’t have supplies, we’ll have loaner sketching supplies, painting supplies, and cameras on hand for those who want to participate hands on.

You’re also welcome to simply pop in and watch for a while!

This event is fully open to ALL people of all levels, ages, and abilities. We encourage community members to stop in and learn more about creating art!

Our featured artist is the talented Dianne Panarelli Miller:

https://www.diannepmiller.com

The morning workshop from 11-noon is FREE and is open to the community! Then, if you’d like to stay for the afternoon and get hands-on mentoring from Dianne, that is available for a $25 donation. You’re of course welcome to stay as long as you’d like to paint, sketch, photograph, and enjoy the environment.

Location:
Alternatives Mill Complex
50 Douglas Road
Whitinsville MA

If it rains on June 21st, WE WILL STILL CREATE ART. We will set up a base inside the Singh theater in the room with a glass wall of windows overlooking the river and opposite-bank mill building. We will paint, sketch, and photograph from inside! Dianne will lead us through the project.

If you specifically would like to try your hand at painting on location – known as plein air – here’s a workshop Dianne did for us in April, giving ideas how to prepare for plein air painting. Take a look!

Preparing for Plein Air with Dianne Panarelli Miller – April 2025

Here’s a plein air workshop Dianne did in Auburn in 2023, to get a sense of Dianne’s style and technique –

Plein Air with Dianne Panerelli Miller at Thaddeus Chapin House

Here’s a written list of items to bring with you when you do your own plein air painting. Note that at the Whitin Mill we’ll have supplies on hand for this community event, if you’d like to borrow ours to give this a try. So you don’t need to bring supplies to the Whitin Mill. Still, if you’d like to build up your own travel bag of items, this page will get you started.

Plein Air Painting – Preparing for your First Outing

Here’s some photos taken by Carol Frieswick to show a few of the scenes you might choose to paint, sketch, or photograph around the Whitin Mill complex. Click on any to get a fuller view of it.

This gorgeous painting by Brandi Van Roo won third place in our “Local Beauty” art show, and showcases this very mill. Brandi did this scene in watercolors.

Brandi previously had won third place in our Worcester Center for Crafts art show with a different watercolor of the mill complex! This shows the building ‘across the river’.

So you can celebrate this location in photography, in sketches, in watercolors, acrylics, oils, pastels – whatever appeals to you.

Ask with any questions!

This event is supported by a grant from the Northbridge Cultural Council, which is part of the Massachusetts Cultural Council. Also, thank you to ValleyCAST and Open Sky for usage of the space!

Want to learn more about taking lovely photos of flowers? Join us on May 23rd 2025 from 2-4pm for our photography workshop at the New England Botanic Garden at Tower Hill! All levels of photographers warmly encouraged to participate. This event is open to the public.

The cost of the photography workshop is $5 each.

Note that because we are holding this month’s workshop at the New England Botanic Garden at Tower Hill, YOU MUST SEPARATELY PAY AN ENTRANCE FEE TO TOWER HILL. That entrance fee is $20. You can find discount or free tickets at many local libraries. Check with your libraries to find an inexpensive way to get into the gardens. If you are a individual served by Open Sky, talk with Open Sky about being sponsored for this event. You pay that entry fee directly to Tower Hill when you arrive.

We will meet at the New England Botanic Garden at Tower Hill, past the entry gates, by the turtle fountain at 2pm. Photographer Lisa Shea will provide a brief introductory discussion of ideas for taking photos of flowers. Then we will explore the gardens from 2-4pm. You can roam on your own, stay with the group, and ask questions whenever you wish. Feel free to come early or stay late!

Location:
New England Botanic Garden at Tower Hill
11 French Drive
Boylston, MA
https://nebg.org/

Date and Time:
Friday May 23, 2025
2-4pm

Please be sure to RSVP to join the group. Let Lisa know what type of cellphone or camera you plan on bringing. Lisa can then send you a PDF of ideas to get you started. If you don’t have access to any cellphone or camera, we have a few we would be able to lend for the afternoon.

Register for Photo Workshop

Let us know if you have any questions! And please make sure you research your New England Botanic Garden at Tower Hill tickets beforehand. That way you can get discount tickets from your local library or from Open Sky (if applicable) to save on your entrance fee.

Please consider then sending in a few of your flower photos to participate in the ValleyCAST flower virtual art show. This show has a deadline of Sunday, May 25th, 2025!

ValleyCAST Art Show

Supported by the BVAA, ValleyCAST, and Open Sky.