The reception for the 8th Annual Blackstone Valley Art Association “Anything Goes” Photography show was on Friday, January 10th, 2020 from 5-7pm. We had a great turnout to the reception. Thank you to everyone who attended!
The show was judged by talented photographer David Long. Be sure to attend his talk on landscape photography on Sunday, January 19th from 1-3pm.
Winners:
First place – Debra Boucher – “Nesting Egrets” Perfect light, unbelievable detail, great use of complementary colors, excellent composition, everything about this shot is perfect. I would give it a 10.
Second place – Luke MacNeil – “Good Morning” Excellent sharpness, wonderful composition, superb bokeh, nice skin tones, spot on colors, a sense of mystery is a plus.
Third place – Gene St. Pierre – “Ferrari #1” Wonderful colors, superb job of cropping, tones are spot on, lines are pleasing, works as an abstract but you know what it is.
Honorable Mention – Debra Boucher – “Three Poppies” Perfect composition (would like a little more room on right) brilliant colors that also complement themselves, excellent detail.
Honorable Mention – Bob Evans – “Circe” Great mood, excellent leading lines with hair, framing to lead to pink lips is dramatic, eyes create a storm (small hot spots)
Honorable Mention – Blair Boudreau – “Puffin Leapin'” Very good composition, tack sharp on eye, light is good, nice complementary colors.
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!
In January to February 2020, the Blackstone Valley Arts Association held their annual “Anything Goes” photography show. As part of this celebration, we dedicated the rear gallery space to the group of Open Sky clients who participated in the Crossroads Digital Media Arts project. This project took place during the Fall 2019 season. The project helped clients learn more about photography, composition, and Photoshop.
Michelle Benjamin organized this show, including putting together labels and hanging for the artwork.
Bob Evans was the judge for this show.
Here is the artwork participating in this show. It is on display through February 21, 2020. The gallery is open from 10am to 3pm from Monday through Saturday. The Blackstone Valley Art Association manages the gallery hours on Saturdays and will have a series of free photography workshops throughout that time period. Come on out to enjoy a free workshop and to enjoy this show!
A Cold Dark Sky
Monkey See
In Tune
Judge Notes from Bob Evans:
Overall this was a great show and really like the passion and the thought going into these photographs and the topics that they have chosen.
Best in Show: Jared with Monkey See: Very moving and a great composition and framing the out of focus animal combined with the sharply focused fence gives a definite sense of confinement and yearning to be free.
Honorable mention: Tom with A Cold Dark Sky: I thought that this had a striking composition was well executed a great sense of movement combined with dynamic diagonals of subject and sky.
Honorable Mention: Philip with In Tune: a nice subject again well executed but the sky I thought was blown out maybe this was his desired effect not sure about that but I had a good proportions and color rendering.
Art Listing:
Crossroads Digital Media Arts Lab
Student Works
Crossroads Digital Media Art Lab is a program run in
Worcester, MA by Open Sky Community Services and is open to the public. The
student work exhibited here shows a variety of skills learned in the Fall 2019
session. For more information on this program, please contact Michelle
Benjamin, Community Membership Coordinator at Michelle.Benjamin@OpenSkyCS.org
or (508) 234-6232.
A Cold Dark Sky – Tom $
60.00
Bees Nest – Erin NFS
Birds of a Feather – Conrad NFS
Breaking the Chains – Shared Work NFS
Fist – Jared NFS
Golden Glove – Anthony $ 40.00
Gopher It! – Conrad NFS
Have a Seat – Jared NFS
I See a Sea – Phillip NFS
In Tune – Phillips $
20.00
Jump – Susan NFS
Mind Your Beeswax – Erin NFS
Monkey See – Jared NFS
Monkeys in Space – Brendan $
15.00
Peek-a-Boo – Ashley NFS
Places to Go – Jared NFS
Shell We…? – Jorge NFS
Stripes – Conrad NFS
Sun Shower – Tyrone $
25.00
The Gears – Phillip NFS
Tiger Eye – Brendan $
30.00
Traffic Jam – Brendan $
15.00
Urban Garden – Jared NFS
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!
The Blackstone Valley Art Association is sponsoring the 8th Annual Anything Goes Photography Show – this show is open to the public! All styles of cameras and cellphone images are showcased in this delightfully eclectic mix. Come to our fun public reception to meet the artists and explore the world of photography!
When: Friday, January 10th, 2020 5-7pm
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.
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!
It’s our second 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 painting 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!
It doesn’t have to be a painting. You can imitate a famous photo. Play with a historical sculpture. 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 1923. Art which is under copyright, after 1923, has its rights controlled by that artist. You would need to ask that artist for permission to use their work in any exhibit.
When: February 28 to March 27, 2020
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.
Each BVAA member may exhibit up to three photos. These will be judged for cash prizes.
Entering the Show The entry fee for this show is $8/piece for 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. 3M stick-on hangers are notorious for falling off – please don’t use those. 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 is midnight on Saturday, Feb 22nd, 2020. Work must be dropped off by Saturday, Feb 22nd, 2020 at 3pm. All work which is brought in will be hung (as long as it is properly wired and is family-friendly). Please bring along a photo of each of your source artwork items, so we can post those next to your artwork. That way visitors can see what you were working with.
We will hang the show on Wednesday February 26th from 4-6pm. We’d love to have you join us!
Judging Judge to be announced
Opening Reception The opening reception for the show is Friday, February 28th, 2020 from 5-7pm. Invite family and friends – all are welcome!
Here’s a video walkthrough of this show!
Pick Up Saturday, March 28th, 2020, from 10am to 3pm. If you aren’t able to make that, please contact us for other arrangements.
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!
This amazing opportunity is a must-see for any photographers. It’s on Sunday, January 19th, 2020 at the Uxbridge Gallery and it’s free! Open to the public!
Meet with talented photographer David Long as he explains to us the best tips for taking landscape photography. His award-winning photos have been showcased at countless galleries, and he runs workshops as well. Take a look at his beautiful images:
January is our month for celebrating all things photography-related! We have our “Anything Goes” photography show and every Saturday we have free workshops on various aspects of photography. Be sure to check out all of our events.
Location: BVAA Alternatives / Open Sky Uxbridge Community Gallery 5 South Main Street Uxbridge, MA 01569
This workshop is free and open to the public.
Ask with any questions!
There is a TON of free parking immediately next to this building. It is fully and easily handicapped accessible.
Ask with any questions – we’d love to have you join us!
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!
January is our month for celebrating all things photography-related! We have our “Anything Goes” photography show and every Saturday we have free workshops on various aspects of photography.
For our January monthly meeting, we all bring in our latest works or images and then offer each other suggestions and advice. You can bring the works in in person or bring JPG images on a thumb drive for us to view on a laptop. It’ll be fun, relaxed, and conversational. Supportive and friendly. All are welcome! Even if you don’t bring your own photos in, you’ll learn a lot from the conversation about other artists’ photos.
The moderator for this evening is talented photographer Shane Gutierrez. From his biography on the MMoA:
“Shane Gutierrez teaches photography. He is a photographer of landscapes, nudes and creative portraiture with over 30 years experience. His photography has been published in The Photo Review and Yankee Magazine and has been featured in exhibitions at the DeBlois Gallery in Providence, RI and the Warwick Museum in Warwick, RI. Shane holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in English from the University of Rhode Island. “
Our January 2020 monthly meeting will be held on Tuesday, January 21st, 2020 from 6:30-9pm.
Location: BVAA Alternatives / Open Sky Uxbridge Community Gallery 5 South Main Street Uxbridge, MA 01569
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!
There is a TON of free parking immediately next to this building. It is fully and easily handicapped accessible.
Ask with any questions – we’d love to have you join us!
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!
NOTE: This class will focus on still life. Bring what you’d like to paint and your light and Carol will see you there!
Oil paint has been the medium of choice for a wealth of famous painters. Leonardo da Vinci. Claude Monet. Pierre-Auguste Renoir. Paul Cezanne. There is just something spectacular about the beauty of oil paint which captures the eye and the imagination.
Whether you’re a raw beginner or an experienced painter, this oil painting class will take you to the next level. It’s full of personal hands-on advice and a warm, welcoming atmosphere!
Talented painter Carol Arnold teaches a monthly oil painting class at the BVAA Alternatives Uxbridge Community Gallery! Carol is a member of Richard Schmid and Nancy Guzik’s Putney Painters! All levels of painters are welcomed with open arms. The focus will be on drawing, edges, values and color. These are areas which a beginner can practice and an advanced student can hone to perfection.
Carol makes these classes fun and inspiring, while supporting you to the next level of your growth!
This monthly class usually meets on the first Monday of every month from 6-9 pm. We are experimenting with other days to see how they work.
Cost: The maximum class size will be 10 students, to ensure plenty of hands-on time for each one. If there are only 1 or 2 students registered for a class, the class will be cancelled. If there are 3 or 4 students, each student pays $20/hr for the class = $60 total. If there are 5-10 students, each student pays $15/hr for the class = $45 total.
Invite your friends! Share the news! The more students which attend, the less you pay and the more fun it is to learn from each other.
When: Monday, Jan 6, 2020 6pm – 9pm
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.
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!
Note that this show IS NOT COMPLETE yet and and the art is just on the walls in random locations. We’ll do the official hanging on Wed Jan 8th, 2020 from 4-6pm. All BVAA members and show participants are welcome to come take part in the hanging! It’s a lot of fun rearranging and laying out the show.
This is a sneak peak at what has come in for this show so far :).
January to March are notoriously cold months in New England. These are the perfect time to run a series of mostly-indoor seminars on photography! All levels are welcome, from beginner to advanced. These are hands-on workshops so bring your camera! Cell phones are fine – we will use them to their best ability.
All of our Saturday workshops are FREE and open to the public! If you can RSVP that is helpful, but if you find yourself free at the last minute, come on by. These are casual and fun. If you can only stop in for an hour, that’s fine. It is relaxed and stress-free.
Be sure to check out our Anything Goes Photography Show – the reception is Fri Jan 10th from 5-7pm. The show runs through Feb 21, 2020.
Here’s the current plan. Note that it is of course subject to change – weather in New England is notoriously unreliable in the winter! We’ll link to full pages for each one as we get closer to the events.
Our January monthly meeting is a free photography critique / feedback session. Even if you don’t bring your own art in, just listening in on the conversation will be incredibly educational.
What else would you be interested in? Let us know!
All workshops are held at our Blackstone Valley Art Association / Open Sky (Alternatives) gallery at 5 South Main Street in Uxbridge. This location is fully handicapped accessible with no stairs at all. We are immediately next to a large free parking lot, so there are no parking issues at all. Contact us with any questions!
Sundays – For Pay Workshops
Note that in addition to our free workshops we’re also planning a few for-pay workshops on Sunday which involve supplies. The costs in these workshops primarily cover those costs of supplies. Here is what we’re planning. We will let you know when we get dates for these.
Holga Medium-Format Film Photography Cyanotypes – Historic 1800s photography Making your own Pinhole Camera 35mm Film Photography including redscale Infrared Photography
4-week Basic Photography Course
Again, ask 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!
If you’re interested in photography, painting, drawing, and illustrating, we have the perfect Saturday lined up! It’ll be a great time with laughter, conversation, creativity, and the space to stretch out!
There are three components to our Saturday of events.
Open Paint 10am-3pm First, for the entire day, it’s an open paint! All are welcome, including the public, family, and friends! It’s free! If the main room gets busy with photography, we have the back conference room dedicated for the painters. We have watercolors and acrylics on hand, or bring your own if you wish.
Mirror / Reflection Photography 10am-noon Come play with mirrors and reflections! Discover fun new ways to create photos using reflections and copies of images.
Photoshop Q&A with James Hunt 1-3pm Having trouble getting the most from Photoshop and Lightroom? Bring in your Photoshop questions and problems for discussion with James Hunt. James is an experienced Photoshop and Lightroom user, trained at the Center for Digital Imaging Arts. If possible come with an image or two on a thumb drive to illustrate the issue/question. Feel free to bring your along your laptop if you wish. James will have his laptop with the most recent releases of Photoshop and Lightroom.
If the weather is nice out, visitors can also embark on an Uxbridge sketch walk. We have the maps all ready.
When: Saturday, February 29, 2020 10am – 3pm
Where: BVAA Open Sky Uxbridge Community Gallery 5 South Main Street Uxbridge, MA 01569
Our Saturdays at the gallery include an open paint session where all styles of art are warmly welcome. Whether you’re 12 or 102, whether you’re a new beginner or a seasoned artist, we would love to have you. It’s completely free to participate in the open paint. You can bring your own paints or we’ll have watercolors and brushes to share.
There is a TON of free parking immediately next to this building. It is fully and easily handicapped accessible.
Feel free to show up for some or all of the day to paint. Some come for just the morning, some for the afternoon, and some for the entire time. There are several options on the same block to grab lunch if you’d like.
Our Saturday events are free, casual, relaxed, and fun! All levels are welcome.
Ask with any questions – we’d love to have you join us!
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!
