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:
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).
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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.
Talented artist Bonnie Frederico offers small-class art classes in the comfort of her Grafton studio! Bonnie is offering classes in oil painting, pastels, and colored pencil. She provides hands-on advice and mentoring!
Here are just a few of her paintings to show her style. Click on any image for the full-proportion version.
One of Bonnie’s popular paintings is of a gorgeous bluebird –
Bonnie has done a number of step-by-step video workshops on painting for the BVAA over the years. This one is of the Grafton Gazebo in winter –
Bonnie also did a video workshop on painting a rural Grafton barway (fence gate)-
Scott Nelson is an incredibly talented artist based in Millbury, Massachusetts. He has published a number of children’s books and teaches classes in illustrating and publishing children’s books. He also is well known for his beautiful watercolor and acrylic paintings.
Scott’s latest classes at the Worcester Art Museum have openings.
He is teaching classes in:
Beginner/Intermediate Drawing
Pen and Ink-Colored Pencil-Watercolor
Watercolor
Studio Invitational (Only open to students who have taken other classes with him.).
Scott highly recommends the drawing class to everyone, to create a foundation for their projects.
Libia Goncalves is an incredibly talented artist. She has chosen to focus her creative energies on mentoring the next generation of artists. From her Milford studio, she offers art classes for small groups of students, helping them learn skills in drawing, painting, composition, color, and more.
Libia offers her classes in both English and Spanish. Her studio’s name is DColorex.
Here are just a few of the talented students Libia works with:
A few of Libia’s own works:
Here’s a video Libia created of how to create a crayon-resist watercolor castle:
Sue Dion is an amazingly talented artist with a studio in Uxbridge, Massachusetts. Sue has sold her artwork around the world. She is known for her loose style with abstracts, florals, and landscapes. She primarily works in acrylics and watercolors.
Here are just a few samples of Sue’s works. Click on one to see it at its full proportions.
Sue teaches classes both in person at her Uxbridge studio and also on line. Here are links to explore Sue’s offerings.
Sue Dion takes us on a personalized tour of her framing shop and art studio in Uxbridge, Massachusetts! Sue teaches small semi-private courses in person as well as online with the Worcester Art Museum. She provides personalized mentorships. Sue even does paint nights!
