Blog

Welcome to the BVAA

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!

Gallery and Upcoming Events

BVAA Open Sky Uxbridge Community Art Gallery

dennis smith

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!

Massachusetts Cultural Council
Massachusetts Cultural Council
Macabre Show 2026

12th Annual BVAA Macabre Spooky Art Show – 2026

Our twelfth anniversary! Hurrah! It’s creepy and it’s kooky! Mysterious and spooky! 2026 is the year for our 12th Annual Macabre art show! We hold this members-only pop-up and virtual show to celebrate Halloween. It is free, not judged, and does not involve prizes. It’s all for fun!

About the Show
Spooky. Unsettling. Wisps of mists and dark shadows. Macabre brings out the fascination with the off-beat side of life.

Submissions / Virtual Show
The online submission deadline for the FREE Macabre show is Wednesday, October 28nd, 2026. You don’t need to use the online submission form – you can simply email the JPGs to us. You can submit up to five works for the virtual show. It’s open to all BVAA members. This is not a judged show so you CAN enter things you’ve entered in previous shows (including previous Macabre shows).

The In Person Macabre Show

We have our community show reception on Friday October 30th 5-7, and then the gallery is open its normal 10-3 hours on Saturday October 25th. So we’ll have places in the gallery for those TWO DAYS ONLY for the Macabre special event. Please bring in 1-2 items for the in-person feature. There will just be shelf and easels, so we want to have room for everyone. You can bring your art with you Friday if you want and then pick them up any time after Saturday afternoon (or in later weeks). No rush. The in-person show is just a highlight to …

The Macabre Video
The video we release for the reception with be a “moody” version. It will have a soundtrack and the images showing one by one. It will be something you could have going in the background at a spooky dinner to add ambiance.

Virtual Reception
We’ll have our premiere of the video slideshow on Friday night October 30th to kick off the Halloween weekend.

Theme
This show is Halloween. Spooky. Shadowy.

Here are photos and videos from previous years –

Macabre Show 2016

Twisted Dolls Show 2015 at the Worcester PopUp (now the JMAC)

We look forward to seeing your spooky work!

Volunteer with the BVAA

The Blackstone Valley Art Association is a Massachusetts non-profit which is run 100% by volunteers. Every person you talk with in the BVAA is a volunteer! Together we all help our organization shine and support creative souls of all abilities.

Here are just a few things we could use volunteer assistance with!

Saturdays at the Gallery
Every Saturday from 10am to 3pm we have our Uxbridge Community Art Gallery open to the public. Sometimes people come in to view the current show. Sometimes they bring their art supplies to work on their latest project. We bring in watercolors, brushes, paper, and pens for people to use. Sometimes visitors just like to chat about art! It’s relaxing and fun. BVAA President Lisa Shea is usually in the Uxbridge gallery every Saturday 10-3 but she’s not much of a morning person and the 10am starts are tricky. Sometimes we like to offer special art projects tying in to US holidays like National Collage Day or National Watercolor Day. If you’re available on a Saturday, contact us to let us know!

Going forward, we’ll put indications on our BVAA Google Calendar so you know which times are taken care of.

Show Installations
Our show drop-offs are always on a Saturday 10-3. We generally aim to have the show installation (arranging of the art) from 3-5pm so that everything is safely on the walls and in its correct location. This takes some Tetris-like attention to how colors and shapes work together, to create a pleasing overall composition. We will announce for each show when we plan to do the installation.

Show Labelling
We often label the show just before the reception, once we have confirmed all the pieces in a show and gotten in the titles and prices from everyone. This is a fairly quick 1-hour process where we pair up the labels with the pieces and tape the labels to the walls.

Reception Setup
Our receptions are generally on a Friday from 5-7pm. Depending on the show the reception could be at any time during the show’s duration. Lisa gets there at 4pm with the supplies and can use help getting everything set up. Let her know if you’re free on a reception Friday!

Field Trip Support
We aim to have monthly field trips to enjoy a local art-related location. Lisa generally runs these. It’s always helpful to have someone else on hand to help with meeting people and keeping things organized!

Transportation
We have a number of members who have challenges driving at night or at all. If you’re planning on attending an event and wouldn’t mind having a passenger, please let us know! We can figure out if there’s someone in your neighborhood who could use a hand. It would be enormously wonderful if some of our unable-to-drive members could cherish time in the company of warm, supportive artists!

BVAA Board
Our BVAA Board is very casual. We have a Zoom meeting every few months to discuss the upcoming calendar and brainstorm about workshops to hold. If you’d like to join us on the board, please let us know!

If you have other ways you’d like to help out, contact us! We’re open to ideas!

Blue Art Show BVAA 2026

Blue Art Show Winners 2026

Thank you so much to everyone who came out to the Blue show reception on Friday evening! We had a number of new members and it was wonderful for them to be able to talk with so many different artists. It was fun to see the blue outfits in the mix!

The judge for this show was George Hancin, who teaches at the Worcester Art Museum. He had a really hard time judging amongst the 79 entries. Normally we have 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and three honorable mentions. We let George choose the three main ribbons plus six honorable mentions. And he still wanted a seventh :).

Congratulations to Christine Masse-Hainley for winning first place with her colored pencil creation “His Favorite Belt”. Judge notes: Close-cropped composition of clothes, seemingly generic, made special by sharp detail and complementary colors.

Congratulations to Merilyn Rocks for winning second place with “From Mom’s Garden” watercolor. Judge notes: Complex arrangement rendered with such amazing detail it looks the dimensional. Merilyn notes: Mommy died in 2020 at the age of 97. She always had the most beautiful gardens and I would either sit on the lawn by her flowers & paint them from life or in this case photograph them to paint in years to come. These Iris especially were some of her hybrid ones which were so tall I had to take a pic before the wind at Lake Nipmuc blew them down. Still painting now from her beautiful blooms.

Congratulations to Bonnie Frederico for winning third place with her “My Gravy Boat” oil painting. From the judge: “Primarily grey painting brought to life by bright oranges and blues.”

Congratulations to Vincent Ryan for winning an honorable mention in our BVAA Blue Show with “Potted Succulents” watercolor. Judge notes: Triangle of greens, violets, and blues accent each other; each had its own repetition of various petal shapes.

Congratulations to Carol Frieswick for winning an honorable mention in our BVAA Blue Show with her oil painting “Eastham”! Judge notes: A dreamlike nighttime misty atmosphere with subtle colors and hues.

Congratulations to Verne Thayer for winning an honorable mention in our Blue art show with his “Art of Water” oil painting! Judge notes: A twilight scene of dark clouds and sunset reflecting in water against a silhouette.

Congratulations to Beverly Tinklenberg for winning an honorable mention with “Eric’s Daughter” watercolor in our Blue art show! Judge notes: A loosely painted rosy-faced portrait with an expression that can have many interpretations.

Congratulations to Steve Paulson for winning an honorable mention in our Blue art show with his “Twilight” watercolor! Judge notes: This monochrome watercolor has a still gentle atmosphere.

Congratulations to Sue Dion for winning an honorable mention in our Blue art show with “Serenity”! The judge said: A quick impressionistic expressive view of trees in a marsh.

Thank you so much to everyone who participated in our Blue art show. This show is live through Sat Oct 17th. Sat will be the pickup for the Blue show and the dropoff for the free Community art show.

Community Art Show 2026

2026 Free Community Art Show

The Blackstone Valley Art Association is proud to host the FREE 2026 Community Art Show! The public is warmly invited to participate! This show is open to all forms of artistic expression. We would love to see watercolors, acrylic paintings, oil paintings, sculptures, pottery, mixed media, drawings, pastels, photography, cyanotypes, and other forms of art.

THERE IS NO THEME. Your art can be about any topic at all! We celebrate the diversity of our artistic community. All levels of artist warmly encouraged to participate!

When:
October 17th to November 14th, 2026

Where:
BVAA Open Sky 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 Open Sky Uxbridge Community Art Gallery Information

Entering the Show
The theme is wide open. Any topic can be addressed as long as it is family-friendly. 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. This show is free to participate in. Each artist may submit up to two items. The deadline to submit is Saturday, October 17th 2026 at 3pm EST.

Drop Off of Works
Work must be dropped off on Saturday, October 17th between 10am and 3pm. All work which is brought in will be hung (as long as it is properly wired and is family-friendly). We do not “jury” the artwork, picking and choosing which art will be in the show. We allow all artists to participate. Please ONLY bring your artwork in on Saturday, October 17th. BVAA staff need to be present to sign in the artwork, and we are only there at that day and time.

Reception
We will be having an in-person reception at the Uxbridge gallery on Friday, October 30th from 5-7pm! We would love to see you there. This is also a Halloween party! Family, friends, and community members are warmly welcome!

Pick Up
Pick up is on Saturday, November 17th from 10am to 3pm. If you aren’t able to make that, please contact us for other arrangements.

Voting is done by the community! Please cast your votes for first, second, and third place. Each person can vote for those 3 places. You can email votes to info@bvaa.org, vote in person, vote on the video, or in any other way that reaches us! Voting is through November 13th 2026 so we can give the winners their certificates when they pick up their artwork on Saturday Nov 14th.

With some voting shows we have a ‘closing reception’ to hand out prizes. In this case, though, we have our reception in October so we can also celebrate Halloween / the Macabre show as a pop-up show. And the holidays are so busy that having two receptions (one for this show, then one for the next Great Gifts show) in quick succession would be a challenge for peoples’ schedules. So we will announce winners on social media and in our newsletter on the evening of Fri Nov 13th.

Community Show History
This art show, originally called “Tapestry”, was begun by Alternatives as an annual community art celebration. This show was running by 2010, and maybe began earlier. When the BVAA began handling the Uxbridge gallery space in 2016, we took responsibility for continuing this Tapestry show. Up until 2022 we continued to call this art show “Tapestry” to indicate it represented all types of threads from the community coming together.

Unfortunately, every time we referred to this show as “Tapestry”, many artists thought it was a fabric arts show and wouldn’t enter. Even when we attempted to make it clear that all types of art were welcome, artists remained confused and skipped the show. To counter this issue, in 2022 we updated this show’s name to “Diversity”. We aimed to represent our goal to bring in a diverse community of artists. However, people then thought the topic was specifically about Diversity.

So starting in 2024 we simply called this a Community Art Show!

Address any questions via our BVAA Contact Information

We look forward to seeing your artwork!

Inspiration from Past Shows

https://youtube.com/watch?v=pmhMBIkqbV4%3Ffeature%3Doembed

Here’s the video walkthrough from the 2023 art show:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=61hltt1rc4Q%3Ffeature%3Doembed

Here are the winners from our 2023 show!

Winners of our Community Art Show 2023

Here is the 2021 Community Art Show to get some ideas!

https://youtube.com/watch?v=ZD9qrGa4YLY%3Ffeature%3Doembed

Here’s the 2018 show video:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=4biYS14jP1U%3Ffeature%3Doembed

Full schedule of shows in 2026 –

November 2026 Monthly Meeting – Art Journaling for Stress Relief

Our November 2026 meeting at the Uxbridge gallery guides you on the relaxing path of art journaling. Whether you like to draw, sketch, paint, or doodle, art journaling is a great way to capture ideas and release stress.

This workshop is led by CJ Kennedy, who teaches at the Worcester Art Museum. CJ will help you hands-on get a sense of how art journaling can lift your spirits and calm your chaos. You can bring your own supplies or we’ll have some to share. The suggested supply list is at the bottom of this page.

Our November 2026 monthly meeting is open to the public. It will be held on Tuesday, November 17th, 2026 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.

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

We open the gallery doors right about 6:30pm. Our meetings cover BVAA organization business from about 6:30-7:00pm. Then we transition into the workshop part of the evening. Feel free to come for whichever part interests you the most, but be aware that sometimes we go into the demo earlier than 7pm if we get done with the business section early.

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 BVAA 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! There’s no need to RSVP. Feel free to simply show up.

Supply Notes:

The BVAA will provide basic supplies. If you want to add a specific style of personality to your journal, bring in whatever supplies you’d like to make it truly your own!

From CJ:

Look around the house to see what you have. Raid your kids’ or grandkids’ materials. These work just as well as student grade or professional art supplies.

Art journal:

Any kind of journal will do. There are many brands available in different sizes. You don’t need to purchase an expensive one, unless you really want one. You can even use an inexpensive Composition Notebook just like the kind you used in grade school. The instructor will be working on a Composition Notebook purchased from the Dollar Store. I have found some great stuff at the Dollar Store, so I shop there first.

Minimal supplies:

paper or notebook, pencil, pen, eraser

Basic supplies:

Pencil

Eraser: white plastic, gum, or kneaded eraser, any eraser except the Pink eraser on the end of a pencil or Pink Pearl used in school. Pink or other colored erasers may leave a colored stain on your paper.

12-inch, plastic T-square or ruler

Sharpie marker, Black, fine point or ultra fine point to be used to outline or write, Pigma

Colored pencils

Colored markers

Photographs, magazine pictures, text pages from old books or magazines.  If you use photographs make copies and save your original.

Scissors

Glue stick

PVA glue like Elmer’s

Old paint brush or old credit card to spread glue.

Roll of wax paper or parchment paper

Ephemera: old greeting cards, postcards, junk mail, ticket stubs, magazines, etc.

Fun to have but not necessary: Whatever media you like to use or have: Micron Pigma Pen, or Pitt Pens, or other type of black permanent markers in various sizes, acrylic paints, watercolors, brushes for painting, watercolor pencils, brush markers like Tombow, rubber stamps, stamp pads, crayons, fountain pen and ink, gel pens, glitter, glitter glue, ribbon, fabric, decorative paper, gift wrap, tissue paper, stickers, Washi tape, buttons, brads, charms, Baker’s twine, yarn, envelopes, double-stick tape, glue dots, paper clips, tiny clothespins, double-sided foam tape

…

Artist’s Statement

CJ began teaching at the Worcester Art Museum in 2003. She works in ink and gouache using a variety of writing tools and enjoys the challenge of artistically interpreting text. For clients, CJ has addressed invitations, scribed poems/quotes, designed tattoos, personalized Christmas ornaments, written on sand dollars, and walls. CJ is a two-time winner of the Graceful Envelope Contest and has exhibited her work in juried art shows in New England. CJ is also left-handed.

https://cjkennedyink.com/index.html

BVAA Open Sky ValleyCAST

Animal Painting Demo

September 2026 Monthly Meeting – Animal Painting Demonstration

Our September 2026 meeting at the Uxbridge gallery is all about animals! Talented artist Rose Wang will present a demonstration for us on how to create an animal portrait. Many of our BVAA artists paint commissions of animal portraits. Whether you want to try animal portraits, paint wild animals, or explore any other creation of animal images, Rose will help you learn new techniques!

Rose will be doing her demonstration with oil paints. We will watch while she explains the process. She will guide us through all stages of the process – establishing the drawing, mixing clean colors, painting realistic fur, and capturing the animal’s unique personality.

Note that this is not a hands-on workshop, because it deals with oil paints and Rose will need to move quickly to get through the painting in the 2 hours. We will be watching Rose’s demonstration. We will not be painting along.

Even if you aren’t interested in creating animals, Rose’s guidance on laying out a painting, mixing colors, and approaching a project will help any artist.

Our September 2026 monthly meeting is open to the public. It will be held on Tuesday, September 15th, 2026 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.

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

We open the gallery doors right about 6:30pm. Our meetings cover BVAA organization business from about 6:30-7:00pm. Then we transition into the workshop part of the evening. Feel free to come for whichever part interests you the most, but be aware that sometimes we go into the demo earlier than 7pm if we get done with the business section early.

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 BVAA 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! There’s no need to RSVP. Feel free to simply show up.

Artist’s Statement

Rose Wang is a classical oil painter based in Massachusetts, specializing in portraiture, still life, and landscapes painted from life. Her work is inspired by the traditions of classical realism and artists such as John Singer Sargent, with a focus on light, color, and atmosphere.

Art has been her lifelong passion. Before dedicating herself fully to painting, Rose worked as a physician in China and later served for 13 years as a PCA at UMass Memorial Hospital.

After retiring due to health challenges, she returned to painting with renewed focus and determination, pursuing classical fine art with discipline and dedication.

https://rosewangfineart.com

BVAA Open Sky ValleyCAST

Deep Blue by Yinka Shonibare

Blue – Photography & Sketching Fun at the Worcester Art Museum

Featured image: Deep Blue by Artist Yinka Shonibare 1997 acrylic on textiles, Worcester Art Museum

Enjoy fun casual photography with other photographers! Join us on Friday August 28th 2026 from 1-3pm for our photography & sketching stroll at the Worcester Art Museum! All levels of artists warmly encouraged to participate. This event is open to the public.

Non-artists are welcome to join us to walk around and enjoy the exhibits. We all appreciate the artwork while we’re there.

Note that because we are holding this month’s gathering at the Worcester Art Museum, YOU MUST PAY AN ENTRANCE FEE TO THE WAM. That entrance fee is $22 ($17 for seniors and students). You can find discount or free tickets at many local libraries. Check with your libraries to find an inexpensive way to get into the museum. If you are an individual served by Open Sky, talk with Open Sky about being sponsored for this event. You pay that entry fee directly to the museum when you arrive.

We will meet inside the Worcester Art Museum by the Roman mosaic / entrance to the Chapter House at 1pm. BVAA President Lisa Shea will provide a brief introductory discussion of ideas for taking photos / doing sketches in an indoor setting. Then we will explore the museum from 1-3pm. 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:
Worcester Art Museum
55 Salisbury Street
Worcester, MA 01609
https://www.worcesterart.org/visit/

Date and Time:
Friday August 28th, 2026
1-3pm

Please be sure to RSVP to join the group so we know to wait for you. If you’d like help, 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 Worcester Art Museum 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.

Whether you participate in the field trip or not, please consider then sending in a few of your blue-themed photos to participate in the free BVAA virtual art show. This show has a deadline of August 31st, 2026!

Supported by the BVAA, ValleyCAST, and Open Sky.

BVAA Open Sky ValleyCAST
Fall Show 2026

2026 Fall Show by the Blackstone Valley Art Association

The Blackstone Valley Art Association is sponsoring our annual members-only Fall Show! This show is open to all active members of the BVAA. Entries can include all forms of artwork on any theme. This show will be judged for cash prizes.

When:
Thursday, August 27th to Thursday, October 22nd, 2026

Where:
ValleyCAST’s Heritage Gallery at the Alternatives Whitin Mill
50 Douglas Road
Whitinsville MA

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

Entering the Show
The theme is wide open. Any topic can be addressed as long as it is family-friendly. This show does NOT have to be about autumn. The show simply happens in the autumn. 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. While AI and other artists can be used to generate starting concepts for BVAA show artwork, all final work submitted must be wholly the personal creation of the individual BVAA member.

Submissions
To submit your entries use our BVAA Online Submission Form. The fee to participate is $8/piece or 3 for $20 for members. You can submit up to 3 pieces. As this is a judged show, you cannot enter anything which has been entered into a previous BVAA judged show (that includes shows both BVAA shows at ValleyCAST as well as BVAA shows at the Uxbridge gallery). The deadline to submit the online forms, so we can make our labels, is end of day August 22nd.

Drop Off of Works
Work must be dropped off at the ValleyCAST’s Heritage Gallery at the Alternatives Whitin Mill on Friday August 21st during business hours 10:00am – 4:00pm. If you can’t make that, you have two other options:

  1. Lisa Shea will be at the Sunflower Show reception at the Booklovers’ Gourmet that evening Fri Aug 21st from 5-7pm. Come out to enjoy the reception and Lisa can take your art from you there. That’s at 72 E Main St, Webster MA.
  2. Lisa will be at the BVAA Uxbridge gallery that Sat Aug 22nd the regular 10am – 3pm hours. You can bring your art by the Uxbridge gallery and Lisa will bring that art all in on Monday morning to ValleyCAST.

All work which is brought in will be hung, as long as it is properly wired and is family-friendly. We do not ‘pre-select’ art for the show.

Installation
August 25th to 26th, during business hours 9:00am – 4:00pm.

Judging
The show is judged for cash prizes. Those cash prizes are based on the money paid in to the show for entry fees. Each show is self-supporting in that sense. The shows don’t add money to the BVAA – the money we take in then goes to the prizes and judge. Generally we award first, second, third, and three honorable mentions. This depends on the number of overall entries.

Artist’s Reception
The artist’s reception is Thursday, September 3rd from 5-8pm. This is the final concert series evening! The concert runs from 6-8pm so aim to get there before 6 for easier parking! There is parking both alongside the mill buildings and also across the street in a larger lot. As always with events at the Whitin Mill, PLEASE park in the upper parking lot unless you have mobility issues. There are many people who really need the lower lot for serious mobility issues. If you have mobility issues and can come in with someone to drop you off by the stairs and pick you up there, that would be great. I am also happy to go up after the show, get my car, and ferry people between the plaza and the upper lot.

We will have HUGE crowds for this reception. The finale act is a Fleetwood Mac tribute band. It is well worth attending to meet visitors and discuss your art. I will have name tags available so that you can easily be identified as an artist. There will be a food truck on site. NOTE: We will NOT be providing free food or drink at this concert because it would be challenging to manage the volume of people present and to have free alcohol. No need to bring food or drink. The food truck is pretty tasty!

Pick Up
Pick up is Friday, October 23rd during business hours 9am to 4pm and Monday, October 26th from 9am to 4pm. If you aren’t able to make that timeframe, please contact Lisa for other arrangements. She can bring any non-picked-up art over to Uxbridge after Monday, for retrieval there during our regular Saturday 10-3 hours.

Address any questions via our BVAA Contact Information

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

Here’s the walkthrough for the 2023 show, to give you some inspiration:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=vEa_NpcWLHg%3Fversion%3D3%26rel%3D1%26showsearch%3D0%26showinfo%3D1%26iv_load_policy%3D1%26fs%3D1%26hl%3Den-US%26autohide%3D2%26wmode%3Dtransparent

You can also enjoy our 2021 Fall Show!

https://youtube.com/watch?v=I3vze48B_Tg%3Fversion%3D3%26rel%3D1%26showsearch%3D0%26showinfo%3D1%26iv_load_policy%3D1%26fs%3D1%26hl%3Den-US%26autohide%3D2%26wmode%3Dtransparent
Blue Bottle Spring Water by Joop Vegter

Blue – August 2026 Art Challenge – Photography Painting & More!

Featured image: Blue Bottle Spring Water by Joop Vegter at the Worcester Art Museum

Every month the Blackstone Valley Art Association hosts a fun art challenge which is free and open to the public! The aim of this project is to encourage you to think creatively about your surroundings. Be mindful and observant – you never know what you might discover!

The theme for August 2026 is “Blue”. Is this the color blue? Feeling blue? Listening to the blues? You can interpret this prompt in any way you desire.

We will be creating an online YouTube slideshow out of the images you send to us. Every person can send up to five images. They can be cell phone photos, sketches, drawings, paintings, SLR camera photos, sculptures, digital art, you name it. The only things we want to avoid are non-family-friendly images and AI. These should be your own creations!

For each of your five images, please let us know the artist name to credit. It’s fine to use a pen name / pseudonym. You can send a title if you want. If it’s not a photo, you can let us know how you created it (watercolor, pencil sketch etc.) if you want. You don’t need to, though. It’s fine just to send the images.

This show has a deadline of Friday, August 31st, 2026!

Email up to 5 photos to slideshow@bvaa.org to participate. All are welcome! Free!

We will post the link to the YouTube video once it is created. It takes us a few weeks to create the video, so please be patient!

Here’s the field trip which goes with this project:

Creativity Boosting III Blackstone Valley Art Association

Creativity Boosting III – August 2026 Monthly Meeting

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. We’ll have acrylic paint, cyanotype paper, and more! 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 August 2026 monthly meeting will be held on Tuesday, August 18th from 6:30-8:30pm.

Location:
BVAA 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.

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.

Blackstone Valley Art Association Sponsors