Welcome to the Blackstone Valley Art Association webpage! We have been supporting arts in the Blackstone Valley since 1957. Our main gallery is in Uxbridge; we sponsor numerous shows, events, and workshops throughout the year. This website provides hundreds of pages on local art shows, art events, field trips, workshops, museum visits, and much, much more. We even have a lending library. We are warmly inclusive of all levels, backgrounds, and abilities. Feel free to contact us with any questions!
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!
We have a private room reserved for our group. We will have several round tables, to encourage mingling and conversation.
Each person can order whatever they want and will get their own bill, so it is wholly up to you what you want to eat or drink from that menu. There are no up-front payments.
The May meeting is when we vote on officers and board members for the upcoming 2025-2026 BVAA year. The current people on the slate are:
Lisa Shea, president Bob Evans, vice president Carol Frieswick, treasurer Brent DeWitt, secretary Michelle Benjamin, social networking Laura Cenedella, board member Cathy Willey Douty, board member
Please let us know if you are thinking about coming, so we have a rough headcount for the restaurant. You’re welcome to bring one person with you if you wish. To RSVP, contact Bob Evans at bob9750@gmail.com – if you accidentally email to info@bvaa.org that’s fine too, he gets those email messages too (along with Lisa and Carol).
We would love to see you on May 20th, 2025!
There will NOT be any event in the Uxbridge gallery on Tue May 20th. We will only be at the Grill 122.
Ask if you have any questions, and have a great weekend!
For our 2025 BVAA Art & Poetry Show pairing, one pairing was with artist Katie Williams and poet Lisa Shea!
Here are the works they created!
Katie Williams provided this artwork to Lisa Shea.
In response, Lisa Shea wrote the following poem:
The second half of this pairing involved Lisa Shea giving Katie Williams a poem as a starting point. Lisa Shea provided this poem:
In response, Katie created this artwork:
To meet the artists and poets, be sure to come to our art-poetry reception at the Blackstone Public Library in Blackstone, Massachusetts on Thursday, April 17th from 6-8pm!
For our 2025 BVAA Art & Poetry Show pairing, one pairing was with artist Sue Dion and poet Laura DiCaronimo!
Here are the works they created!
Sue Dion provided this artwork to Laura DiCaronimo.
In response, Laura DiCaronimo wrote the following poem:
The second half of this pairing involved Laura DiCaronimo giving Sue Dion a poem as a starting point. Laura DiCaronimo provided this poem:
In response, Sue created this artwork:
To meet the artists and poets, be sure to come to our art-poetry reception at the Blackstone Public Library in Blackstone, Massachusetts on Thursday, April 17th from 6-8pm!
To learn more about Laura DiCaronimo’s writings visit:
For our 2025 BVAA Art & Poetry Show pairing, one pairing was with artist Judi Potter and poet Irena Kaçi!
Here are the works they created!
Judi Potter provided this artwork to Irena Kaçi.
In response, Irena Kaçi wrote the following poem:
The second half of this pairing involved Irena Kaçi giving Judi Potter a poem as a starting point. Irena Kaçi provided this poem:
In response, Judi created this artwork:
To meet the artists and poets, be sure to come to our art-poetry reception at the Blackstone Public Library in Blackstone, Massachusetts on Thursday, April 17th from 6-8pm!
For our 2025 BVAA Art & Poetry Show pairing, one pairing was with artist Bob Evans and poet Christopher Reilley!
Here are the works they created!
Bob Evans provided this artwork to Christopher Reilley.
In response, Christopher Reilley wrote the following poem:
The second half of this pairing involved Christopher Reilley giving Bob Evans a poem as a starting point. Christopher Reilley provided this poem:
In response, Bob created this artwork:
To meet the artists and poets, be sure to come to our art-poetry reception at the Blackstone Public Library in Blackstone, Massachusetts on Thursday, April 17th from 6-8pm!
To learn more about Christopher Reilley’s writings visit:
For our 2025 BVAA Art & Poetry Show pairing, one pairing was with artist Leslie Breault and poet Kara Emily Krantz!
Here are the works they created!
Leslie Breault provided this artwork to Kara Emily Krantz.
In response, Kara Emily Krantz wrote the following poem:
The second half of this pairing involved Kara Emily Krantz giving Leslie Breault a poem as a starting point. Kara Emily Krantz provided this poem:
In response, Leslie created this artwork:
To meet the artists and poets, be sure to come to our art-poetry reception at the Blackstone Public Library in Blackstone, Massachusetts on Thursday, April 17th from 6-8pm!
To learn more about Kara Emily Krantz’s writings visit:
For our 2025 BVAA Art & Poetry Show pairing, one pairing was with artist Carole Plante and poet Sue Lovejoy!
Here are the works they created!
Carole Plante provided this artwork to Sue Lovejoy.
In response, Sue Lovejoy wrote the following poem:
…
The second half of this pairing involved Sue Lovejoy giving Carole Plante a poem as a starting point. Sue Lovejoy provided this poem:
In response, Carole created this artwork:
To meet the artists and poets, be sure to come to our art-poetry reception at the Blackstone Public Library in Blackstone, Massachusetts on Thursday, April 17th from 6-8pm!
In the Blackstone Valley Art Association’s 2025 “Local Beauty” art show, we celebrated scenes of local interest. Joanne Zeis entered a photo of the Miss Worcester lunch car diner. This classic diner is located in Worcester, Massachusetts. The way Joanne took this photo, the diner looks like a toy model.
How do you get a camera to turn a regular building into a toy model version?
2013, Miss Worcester Diner / Joanne Zeis
Joanne’s husband, Mike Zeis, explains the process!
Joanne shot the Miss Worcester Diner photo with her Canon Rebel T3 in 2013, through a Lensbaby Composer mounted instead of the regular zoom lens.
Think about it this way: The regular lenses we use are tubes with one lens mounted on the outside of the tube and another lens on the back of the tube—that’s the part that attaches to the camera body. The Lensbaby Composer is built so that the lens on the outside pivots or tilts. With the front lens aligned straight, the photo will be normal (except with a very shallow depth of field). With the Lensbaby, the sharpness fall-off is steep—there’s only a small center in focus. When you pivot or tilt the front lens, the optics that usually allow images to be sharp in the center shift, and the areas that are in focus (plane of focus) move to another part of the image, and no longer are parallel to the plane of the film.
In other words, because the whole plane of focus changes, the depth of field sometimes appears to be “stretched,” so that some parts of the picture that are the same distance from the lens appear in focus and others that may be nearby are not. The ability to modify both the location of the center of focus and the shape of the depth of field makes this kind of lens special: It has the ability to make subjects look like toys, like in the Miss Worcester shot.
There’s no autofocus: Lensbabies have a focus ring on the barrel. One controls the aperture and depth of field by swapping out washer-like plastic inserts into the front part of the lens.
In practice, the Lensbaby is sort of the opposite of point-and-shoot. It’s a little easier to set up if your photo has the sharp part in the center. But if your composition calls for the in-focus part to be on the side or toward one of the corners, there’s a bit of back and forth between adjusting the tilt/pivot and bringing the subject into focus. Screen preview helps a lot, and zooming in on the screen preview and scrolling over to the right place lets you nail in the focus, and gives you assurance that you’re OK.
Our Lensbaby (Lensbaby Composer) was $199 when we got it in 2013. The line has expanded considerably. Today’s Lensbaby Composer Pro II costs $299. The low-end model, the Lensbaby Spark 2.0, costs $199. They’ve added an aperture ring, but now use a “accordion-like design” with “squeeze-to-focus” adjustment.
Joanne’s photo is not from street level. And we didn’t put a ladder up in the middle of the intersection, we used the handy concrete ramp across Southbridge Street. The lens is 50mm, and the photo was cropped tight (there’s no uncropped version that we could find).
…
Thank you so much to Joanne Zeis and Mike Zeis for bringing us this photo and explaining how to create it!
A framed 8×12 version of this photo is available for $50 from Joanne Zeis. Contact us for details or if you’d like a different size.
Worcester Center for Crafts, in collaboration with ValleyCAST, has invited BVAA artists to exhibit in their Community Gallery for their annual event Hot Night in the City!
This amazing artistic event draws in crowds of 3,000 people. Our artwork would be featured down the main hallway of the center. It is a prime opportunity for visibility and sales!
When: June 29 to July 27, 2025
Where: Worcester Center for Crafts 25 Sagamore Road Worcester, MA 01605
Each BVAA member may exhibit up to three art items. All forms of media are warmly encouraged – paintings, mixed media, photography, textiles, sculpture, and more.
Entering the Show The entry fee for this show is $8 per piece for up to three pieces.
Note that as this is a non-BVAA-gallery show YOU CAN ENTER PIECES THAT HAVE BEEN IN PREVIOUS BVAA SHOWS. You shouldn’t enter any piece which was in the 2024 Hot Night in the City show. Select the works which you feel best represent you!
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. You may choose to have your artwork listed as not for sale.
All art items which are entered are displayed. 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.
Submissions To submit your entries use our BVAA Online Submission Form. The deadline to submit your online details is midnight on Sunday, June 23, 2025. Work must be dropped off at the Worcester Center for Crafts on Saturday, June 29, 2025 from 10am to 1pm. Please do not bring in art to the gallery at other times. All work which is brought in will be displayed (as long as it is properly wired and is family-friendly).
We plan on arranging / labelling the show on Saturday, June 29 as work is being dropped off starting at 10:00 am. Please don’t be late! If you are unable to bring your work on that date, please contact us to make other arrangements on or before June 22
As this show will not have a reception, and is not in our gallery, there will be NO commission on sales. The artist gets the full amount.
Judging Judged for monetary prizes to be determined.
Opening Reception In lieu of an opening reception, everyone is invited to attend Hot Night in the City on Friday, July 18, from 4:00-9:00 pm. This is a free event.
Pick Up Sunday, July 27, 2024, from 10am to 1pm at the Worcester Center for Crafts. If you aren’t able to make that, please contact us for other arrangements.
The Blackstone Valley Art Association is sponsoring its seventh annual Series Show! This is a fun, creative art show which celebrates the magic of creating artwork in a series.
This show is for all BVAA members to participate in. You can submit two or three artwork items as your series. They can be related to each other in any way that you wish. It’s wholly up to you to define the theme of your series.
Maybe they are all shades of blue. Maybe they’re all landscapes. Do they all involve triangles? Cows? You can mix your artwork styles. Do one photo, one sculpture, and one watercolor painting. Explore your creativity!
When: June 7 (dropoff) to July 12, 2025
Where: BVAA / Open Sky Uxbridge Community Art 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.
Each BVAA member may exhibit two or three art items. These will be judged *as a series* (i.e. one prize for a whole group) for cash prizes. Note that you CAN submit items which you’ve submitted separately for judging before. This time they’ll be judged as an entire series. Also, when you submit items to this show as part of a series you CAN then submit them separately for a future show as individual items. This here is a fairly unique show in that we’re judging the art items as one coherent “group”.
Entering the Show The entry fee for this show is $20 for two to three pieces. Note that you can’t submit just one item. This submission needs to be 2 or 3 items which relate to each other. They can be presented together if you wish, as in a triptych frame.
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.
Submissions To submit your entries use our BVAA Online Submission Form. The deadline to submit your online details is midnight on Saturday, June 7, 2025. Work must be dropped off on Saturday, June 7, 2025 between 10am and 3pm. Please do not bring in art to the gallery at other times. All work which is brought in will be hung (as long as it is properly wired and is family-friendly).
We plan on arranging / labelling the show on Wednesday, June 11th starting at 6:30pm. We’d love to have you join us! Please contact us in case we change the date or time.
Judging Judge to be announced
Reception The reception for the show is Friday, June 13th from 5-7pm. Invite family and friends – all are welcome!
Pick Up Saturday, July 7, 2025, from 10am to 3pm. If you aren’t able to make that, please contact us for other arrangements.
