Category: BVAA Shows and Events

Want to learn more about taking lovely photos? Join us on Friday September 26th 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 in an outdoor setting. 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 September 26th, 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.

Whether you participate in the field trip or not, please consider then sending in a few of your Beautiful Skies photos to participate in the free ValleyCAST virtual art show. This show has a deadline of Sunday, September 28th, 2025!

ValleyCAST Art Show

Supported by the BVAA, ValleyCAST, and Open Sky.

Congratulations to the winners of the 2025 Fall Art Show, held at the ValleyCAST Spaulding R. Aldrich Heritage Gallery at the Whitin Mill in Whitinsville, Massachusetts! Cristi Collari was the judge for this show.

Congratulations to Lynne Randolph for winning first place in our BVAA Fall Art Show at ValleyCAST! This beautiful pastel painting is “Family Stroll” $325.

Congratulations to Karin Cloutier for winning second place with “Silence to Bloom” acrylic painting $215.

Congratulations to Joanne Zeis for winning third place with her photo “Long Way Down” $175.

Congratulations to Carole Plante for winning an honorable mention in our BVAA Fall Art Show! This is stained glass “Kiss Me” – not for sale (sigh Carole you are so cruel!!).

Congratulations to Michael Backunas for winning an honorable mention in the BVAA Fall Art Show! This is “Abandoned Whaling Ship West Iceland” photography $300.

Congratulations to Bonnie Frederico who got an honorable mention for “Sunflowers and Peaches” oil painting $475.

Here’s the information on this 2025 Fall Art Show!

2025 Fall Show by the Blackstone Valley Art Association

The BVAA Uxbridge SketchFest is back for its eighth year! Grab your pads of paper, pencils, and pens, for it’s SketchFest time!

Here’s the plan.

Sometime between September 1st and November 30th 2025, head out to your favorite locations in Uxbridge. Make sketches of whatever catches your eye. Send them into us at info@bvaa.org. Each person can send us up to five sketches. Please have the last JPGs in to us by midnight on November 30th 2025. Participation is completely FREE!

If you can also send a photo of what you were sketching, or its location, that would be lovely. That way people can tour Uxbridge and see the locations of the artwork.

We will make a virtual gallery of the sketches and also a YouTube virtual presentation! We’ll share all the beautiful artworks for the entire community to enjoy!

All ages and abilities are warmly encouraged to participate. This is open to the public!

Here’s a how-to workshop we’re holding to get you started! Free!

Urban Sketching Techniques with Diane Vanaskie Mulligan

Here is Dennis Smith’s great map of wonderful locations in Uxbridge. Click on it to get a larger version along with details about each location. This is a starting point. You can make your sketches anywhere in Uxbridge.

What Is A Sketch?

Just what is a sketch? We’re glad you asked!

For the sake of our SketchFest, a sketch is a quick representation of a scene done with pen or pencil on paper. It can then be colored in with colored pencil or watercolors. Here’s a beautiful example done by Pamela Siderewicz of a lawyers’ office building on Uxbridge Common.

At our 2019 Uxbridge SketchFest we had the amazing Laura Sfiat from the Urban Sketchers Boston group come guide us through sketching. Here is one of Laura’s examples (not of Uxbridge) which provides a few details about how she works.

Here’s Laura’s website which has all sorts of great information and advice:

https://belleartwork.wordpress.com

Here’s a video of the afternoon session with Laura, which focused more specifically on portrait sketching.

Portrait Sketching by Laura Sfiat using Reilly Method

Our 2023 Uxbridge SketchFest session featured the talented Howie Green leading a sketching session on the Uxbridge Town Common!

In 2024, this session by Brandi Van Roo covered all the basics – equipment, techniques, and brainstorming, done at the River Bend Farm in Uxbridge:

To get some inspiration, here are sketches from the 2023 SketchFest:

Here’s images from the 2021 Uxbridge SketchFest:

If you can’t get out to a site in person, here are some photos of locations that our BVAA members have allowed you to use as a basis for a sketch!

Ask with any questions, and we look forward to seeing your artwork!

Thank you to the Uxbridge Cultural Council and the Massachusetts Cultural Council for supporting the Uxbridge SketchFest!

Congratulations to the winners of our 2025 art show at the Worcester Center for Crafts!

Congratulations to Sue Dion Art for winning first place in our Worcester Center for Crafts art show with her acrylic painting “Come Hell or High Water”.

Congratulations to Deb Bottomley for winning second place in our Worcester Center for Crafts art show with her oil painting “Invitation”.

Congratulations to Nancy Szostak Wright for winning third place in our art show at the Worcester Center for Crafts with the photo “Chatham Gull”

Congratulations to Bob See for winning an honorable mention in our Worcester Center for Crafts art show with his photo “A Leap of Faith”.

Congratulations to Monica McCarthy for winning an honorable mention in our Worcester Center for Crafts art show with her acrylic painting “Numbers Game”.

Congratulations to Young Farwell for winning an honorable mention in our art show at the Worcester Center for Crafts with her oil portrait “Mr. Robert Farwell”!

Thank you to everyone who participated in this show! Thank you to the Worcester Center for Crafts and to ValleyCAST for the opportunity!

The judges for this show were Elaine McKenna-Yeaw, Executive Director, Tomo Sakai, Community Gallery Director, and Amanda Santerre.

 

Summertime is a busy time for many of our artists, so we keep our summer workshops light and fun. The public is warmly encouraged to participate!

The FREE 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 August 2025 monthly meeting will be held on Tuesday, August 19th 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.

Congratulations to the winners of our 2025 Show of Hands art show! The judge for this art show was Sue Dion.

Congratulations to Beverly Tinklenberg for winning first place in our BVAA Art Show! This is “No Parking” watercolor $325.

Congratulations to Verne Thayer for winning second place in our BVAA Art Show! “Milford Pond” oil painting $900.

Congratulations to Lynne Galluzzo for winning third place in our BVAA Art Show! This is “Comment on the Egg Industry” collage – not for sale.

Congratulations to Edith DeWitt for an Honorable Mention in our BVAA Art Show! “Blue Bird” watercolor – not for sale.

Congratulations to Michele St Pierre for winning an honorable mention in our BVAA Art Show! This is “A Walk in the Woods” pencil $100.

Congratulations to Beverly Tinklenberg for winning an honorable mention in our BVAA Art Show! “Lilies” was painted with watercolor and gouache. $300.

Thank you to everyone who participated in this show!

Here is more information about our Show of Hands art show –

Show of Hands Seventh Annual Open Art Show 2025

Here is more information about Sue Dion, the judge –

https://www.suedionart.com

Want to learn more about taking lovely photos of garden critters? Join us on Friday August 22nd 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 bugs, beetles, butterflies, dragonflies, and more. 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 August 22nd, 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.

Whether you participate in the field trip or not, please consider then sending in a few of your Garden Critters photos to participate in the free ValleyCAST virtual art show. This show has a deadline of Sunday, August 24th, 2025!

ValleyCAST Art Show

Supported by the BVAA, ValleyCAST, and Open Sky.

Our eleventh anniversary! Hurrah! It’s creepy and it’s kooky! Mysterious and spooky! 2025 is the year for our 11th 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 22nd, 2025. 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 24th 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.

Macabre Spooky Halloween Art Show 2025

Virtual Reception
We’ll have our premiere of the video slideshow on Friday night October 24th to kick off the Halloween weekend.

Theme
This show is Halloween. Spooky. Shadowy.

Here are photos from previous years –

Twisted Dolls Show 2015

Macabre Show 2016

Here’s the video from the 2020 show!

Here’s the Macabre show from 2022!

Here’s the Macabre show in 2023!

We look forward to seeing your spooky work!

The Blackstone Valley Art Association is showcasing a delightful selection of photography, watercolors, acrylic paintings, oil paintings, jewelry, and more for the month of December 2025. Be sure to stop by and see what we have available! Perfect for gift giving!

When:
November 15th 2025 to January 3, 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 Alternatives Uxbridge Community Art Gallery Information

Entering the Show
This FREE show is open to BVAA members only. 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.

This show is NOT judged (no ribbons, no prizes) – it is primarily about providing visibility and sales for artists during the holiday season. For that reason, you can enter pieces that have been in previous shows. We suggest you enter pieces you think will catch a buyer’s eye and serve well as a gift.

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 five items under 11×17 or up to three items if they’re 11×17 or larger.

Drop Off of Works
Drop off your works on Saturday, November 15th from 10am – 3pm.

All work which is brought in will be hung (as long as it is properly wired and is family-friendly).

Opening Reception
The opening reception will be on Friday, November 21st from 5-7pm.

Pick Up
The pick-up for the Great Gifts show will be on Saturday, January 3th 2026 from 10am – 3pm.

Address any questions via our BVAA Contact Information

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

Great Gifts 2024 –

Here’s the show from 2022 to inspire you!

The Blackstone Valley Art Association is proud to host the FREE 2025 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!

Up until 2022 we called this art show “Tapestry” to indicate it represented all types of threads from the community coming together. Every time we referred to it as “Tapestry” artists thought it was a fabric arts show and wouldn’t enter. In 2022 we updated its name to “Diversity” to represent our aim to bring in a diverse community. However, people then thought the topic was specifically about Diversity. So now we simply call this a Community Art Show!

When:
October 18th to November 15th, 2025

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 18th 2025 at 3pm EST.

Drop Off of Works
Work must be dropped off on Saturday, October 18th between 10am and 3pm. All work which is brought in will be hung (as long as it is properly wired and is family-friendly). Please ONLY bring your artwork in on Saturday, October 18th. 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 24th from 5-7pm! We would love to see you there.

Pick Up
Pick up is on Saturday, November 15th 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 14th 2025 so we can give the winners their certificates when they pick up their artwork on Saturday Nov 15th.

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. We had originally thought about having just one week of voting, so we could announce winners at the Oct 24 reception, but then some people couldn’t get their art in until Oct 23rd so we ran out of time for that idea.

In any case, here’s the video of the show, if you can’t make it in person to the gallery!

Address any questions via our BVAA Contact Information

Ask with any questions!

Here are the 2024 winners, to inspire you!

Winners of 2024 Free Community Art Show

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

Here are the winners from our 2023 show!

Winners of our Community Art Show 2023

Winners of our Community Art Show 2023

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

Here’s the 2018 show video:

Full schedule of shows in 2025 –

BVAA Uxbridge Show Schedule for 2025