Adult Classes

A rumination and discussion of some best practices for the care and feeding of poetry. Come with questions, qualms, curiosity. Leave with inspiration, tools and resources for making verse a vital, viable part of your crazy, over-full life.

Bio: Julia Shipley is the author of a debut collection, The Academy of Hay, winner of the Melissa Lanitis Gregory Poetry Prize and a finalist for the 2016 Vermont Book Award. Her poems have appeared in 32 Poems, The Collagist, Green Mountains Review, Harvard Review online, North American Review, Poetry, Verse Daily and elsewhere. An independent journalist and frequent contributor to Seven Days, Yankee Magazine, and Nieman Storyboard, she also raises animals, vegetables and poetry on her six-acre homestead in Craftsbury, VT.

This intermediate level class will cover the Photoshop skills most used by photographers to refine and enhance their images. The topics that will be covered are effective use of layers and masks, making and refining selections, using adjustment layers, color correcting images, when and how to use blend modes, smart objects, actions, luminosity masks, and more. Students are encouraged to bring their laptops and work along with the instructor.

Software needed: The class will use the current version of Photoshop CC, however, earlier versions will be fine for the majority of the topics.

Prerequisites: Extensive experience with Photoshop is not required, but students should be familiar with the location of the toolbar, menus, and side panels. Students should also have familiarity with the host operating system (MacOS, Windows 7, 8, 10) and be able to download, save, locate, and open image files.

Instructor Bio: The workshop instructor, Kent Shaw, is both a photographer and a teacher. He began photography in 1980 and has been using digital cameras since 1998. His work has been exhibited at River Arts and the Helen Day Art Center and featured at several local restaurants and the Morrisville Post Office. In addition to the classes he has led at River Arts, he has taught middle and high school music, post high school technical classes, and worked for many years as an industrial trainer.

This class is full, contact [email protected] or call 802-888-1261 to be put on the waitlist

Shibori is a traditional Japanese process of folding, wrapping and binding fabric to create pattens when the fabric is dyed, and is used most commonly with indigo. First we'll cover the basic techniques of Shibori and then we'll go over how to set up an indigo vat and we'll dye our Shibori-tied pieces the most beautiful shades of blue. Each person can expect to leave with several pieces, depending on what participants choose to bring in to dye: scarves, shirts, pillow cases, fabric; there are so many possibilities! Participants bring in fabric items, all other materials provided.

Bio: Skye Livingston received a BFA in Fiber from the Kansas City Art Institute. While an artist-in-residence at the Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts in Gatlinburg, TN, she learned the fundamentals of indigo from Yoshiko Iwamoto Wada, an internationally recognized textile artist and indigo master. Skye exhibits her work across the US and sells her naturally dyes textiles in several shops. She is new to the state and lives in Craftsbury, VT.

Carve and print on linoleum block to make multiple images in this special printmaking workshop with artist Robert Brunelle Jr.. Brunelle will lead participants through reversing your drawing, simplifying your image into black and white shapes, transferring your image to the block, safe carving techniques, inking and printing your block. This will be a two-day class, one day to draw and carve the blocks, the second day for printing them. Materials included.

Bio: Robert Waldo Brunelle is a painter, kinetic sculptor, book illustrator, art educator and political cartoonist. He was the art teacher at the Browns River Middle School from 1981 to 2012. He served as the president of the Northern Vermont Artist Association from 1995 to 2012, and now serves as the NVAA’s Vice President. He has been exhibiting his paintings in the region since 1978. He is a founding member of the Vermont Comic Creator’s Group, and his cartoon strip Mr. Brunelle Explains It All appears weekly in Seven Days, and monthly in Funny Times. To see more of his work, visit www.mrbrunelle.com

Join Hanna Satterlee in becoming insatiably curious: about your body and the physical potential of your creativity. Come enjoy a collective group experience of training and evolving physically- through use of classic contemporary dance technique, fused with improvisation, composition and play. Paying direct attention to our alignment and to physics, we will condition our strength, stability and clarity, while simultaneously exercising our personal aesthetic and defining our own unique artistry. With guided exercises for soloists, partnerships and groups, we will enjoy the power of sharing art with others as we move, create and perform for and with one another. Potluck and informal Vermont Dance Alliance informational session to follow class. Choreographer and dancer Hanna Satterlee grew up in East Montpelier, Vermont and has spent many years traveling through dance, both nationally and internationally. Hanna holds a Masters in Fine Arts/Interdisciplinary Arts from Goddard College (VT/WA) and has produced her own choreographic and dance installation work, and has performed with professional companies in Vienna Austria, Stolzenhagen Germany, Baltimore, Manhattan, Brooklyn, San Francisco and throughout the state of Vermont. Now based in Burlington Vermont, Hanna is the current director of the Vermont Dance Alliance, with a strong belief that the culture of dance will continue to flourish and expand throughout the edges of our beautiful state. With support from the Vermont Performance Lab’s SEEDS grant, Hanna is beginning to tour her new collaborative sonic and visual performance titled “Voice and Vessel,” exploring how we each uniquely carry and express information in the vessels of our minds and the vessels of our bodies.

September 17th, 10am-2:30pm

Magical Realism in Nature: Lessons from Brigit Pegeen Kelly’s Poetry

In this four-hour craft workshop, we’ll read from Brigit Pegeen Kelly’s acclaimed book Song to understand how she blends fantasy with the natural world to achieve transcendence. Then, taking inspiration from our natural surroundings, we’ll borrow from Kelly’s toolkit to our own craft poems. After lunch, there will be time for sharing, critique, and an introduction to public speaking specifically geared toward poets. Come prepared with a notebook, writing utensil, and outdoor-appropriate attire. A half-hour lunch is built into the day; participants should provide their own lunch.

September 24th, 10am-2:30pm

The Spirit of Everyday Things: Entering Political Poetry through Objects

Taking our cues from Pablo Neruda and Naomi Shihab Nye, we’ll explore the intersection of poetry, politics, and everyday objects. Neruda and Nye both comment on social inequity through the poetic rendering of what we may take for granted—salt, figs, bread—without becoming preachy or overly sentimental. This workshop will explore their secrets, and our discussion will give way to writing prompts and outdoor reflection. After lunch, there will be time for sharing, critique, and an introduction to public speaking specifically geared toward poets. Come prepared with a notebook, writing utensil, and outdoor-appropriate attire. A half-hour lunch is built into the day; participants should provide their own lunch.

Lizzy Fox is a poet and educator with an MFA in Writing from the Vermont College of Fine Arts. She has taught writing and performance in partnership with the Vermont Arts Council, Flynn Arts, The New England Young Writers Conference, and countless schools. Lizzy is a recipient of the Laura J. Spooner Prize and the Corrine Eastman Davis Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of Vermont, and her poems have appeared in a variety of local journals.