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In recent years, she had been layering prints and making friezes, a classical form.
But current events have been weighing on her mind. An exhibition of her recent work at Two Rivers Printmaking Studio, in White River Junction, is titled “Family,” a word that has taken on grave new meaning.
“I’ve been upset, like so many people have been, about what’s happening at the Texas border,” Schiller said in a phone interview. Immigrant and refugee families have been separated, with children, some of them tiny, held in facilities often far from their parents. “I wanted to make some kind of statement,” Schiller said.
The central image of “Family” is a print titled Torn Apart. Schiller sketched a family in soft lead pencil, then turned the sketch into a solarplate print. The resulting print was then, as the title indicates, torn apart, the family members jaggedly separated, then mounted on a black background.
Schiller surrounded Torn Apart with prints derived from family photographs, made using the same method, sketches and solarplates. These prints capture the kinds of moments American families often take for granted.
The show is modestly sized, only 20 or so works. Schiller spoke of it modestly, as well. A small art show isn’t going to save the world, but she had to speak up.
“Usually, I’m not trying to make any kind of political statement,” she said. “But this time, I was.”
“Family,” prints by Sue Schiller, is on view through August at Two Rivers Printmaking Studio.
Also at Two Rivers is a printmaking event that isn’t so modest. Big Ink, a mobile woodcut printing workshop that specializes in making enormous prints, spends the day at Two Rivers on Saturday.
A long roster of Upper Valley printmakers will be in attendance, making prints nearly as big as a sheet of plywood, around 40 inches by 96 inches, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.
Schiller, for one, has been busy making woodcut plates in her garage, using a dremel tool. The finished print should measure 6 feet by 3 feet in three pieces, she said.
“It will be interesting to see all the work that’s done,” Schiller said.
Based in Newmarket, N.H., Big Ink has been making large-scale prints since 2012.
Norwich artist Viktor Witkowski plans to hold an open studio from 2 to 7 p.m. Saturday on the second floor of AVA Gallery and Art Center in Lebanon.
Like Schiller, Witkowski has been concentrating his recent work on borders and refugees, in his case in Europe. Born in Poland in 1979, Witkowski knows a thing or two about what borders can mean.
“Borderlands,” his recent series, “addresses the ongoing refugee crisis, the rise of nationalism and its impact on the United States, Germany and parts of Europe through video and painting,” his website says.
Openings and Receptions
Another SculptureFest venue, at Woodstock’s King Farm, opens Saturday with music by The Bob from 3 to 5 p.m., and a BYO picnic reception from 4 to 7. The Land Art Lab is part of a sprawling show, which also includes the Prosper Road pastures owned by Charlet and Peter Davenport and the back lawn of the Woodstock History Center, about which see more below in ‘Ongoing.’
A show of two dozen photographs by Tunbridge photographer Allison Clayton, goes on display Wednesday at Tunbridge Public Library. An opening reception is planned for Sept. 23, from 2 to 4 p.m.
Closing
AVA Gallery and Art Center, Lebanon. An exhibition featuring work by the winners of last year’s juried exhibition of regional artists is on view through Friday. The winning artists are sculptor Bruce Blanchette, of Walpole, N.H.; Quechee painter Helen Schulman; and Susan Wilson, a Putney, Vt.-based sculptor.
BigTown Gallery, Rochester, Vt. “Wound Up Wound,” a show of sculptures by John Kemp Lee, who teaches in Dartmouth College’s Studio Art Department; “Hyper Flora,” paintings by part-time Vermont resident Joanne Carson, and “Light & Paper/Mes Plantes” by the Massachusetts photographer Peter Moriarty, continue through Saturday.
Jaffe-Friede Gallery, Hopkins Center for the Arts, Hanover. The annual POD Award exhibition features work by two recent Dartmouth Studio Art graduates, Beverly Alomepe and Julian MacMillan. Through Sunday.
White River Gallery at BALE, South Royalton. “Streams of Light,” paintings by Chelsea artist Susan G. Scott, is on view through Sunday.
Ongoing
Aidron Duckworth Art Museum, Meriden. “Inside Out,” paintings by Galen Cheney, is on view through Sept. 9, and “Transparent Bodies,” a series of paintings by the late Aidron Duckworth, will stay up through Oct. 28. Column II, an outdoor sculpture by artist and musician John McKenna, is on view through Oct. 22. Parliament of the Souls, an outdoor sculptural installation by the Vershire artist Sande French-Stockwell, shows through Oct. 28.
Center for the Arts, New London. Work is shown in three micro-galleries: at New London Inn, showing paintings by Vicki Koron, of Sunapee; at Bar Harbor Bank and Trust, featuring work by Newport, N.H. oil painter Ludmila Gayvoronsky; and at Whipple Hall Gallery, which displays the work of Proctor Academy students.
Chelsea Public Library. “Velvet Brown Disease,” a horse-themed exhibit by Chelsea painter Linda Ducharme, is on view through August.
Cider Hill Gallery, Windsor. “Garden Visions,” a show of flower portraits and landscape paintings in egg tempera and gold leaf by Cider Hill co-owner Gary Milek, continues through Sept. 16.
Converse Free Library, Lyme. “Paintings: Places Near and Far” by Thetford artist Jean Gerber, shows through Sept. 29.
Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, Lebanon. The hospital’s summer art exhibition features Becky Cook and NatEli, the Norwich artists behind the collaboration “Miss-Match”; Robert Chapla, an oil painter from Newbury, Vt.; the late David Eckert, who painted hundreds of watercolors while suffering from Parkinson’s disease; North Sutton, N.H.-based photographer Larry Harper; painter Doris Ingram, a part-time resident of Weston, Vt.; oil painter Tatiana Yanovskaya-Sink, based in Rockland, Mass.; and Keene, N.H. oil painter Anne Ward, as well as work by members of the Upper Valley Woodturners.
Gifford Gallery at Gifford Medical Center, Randolph. Watercolors by Vermont artist Barbara Geyselaers are on view through Sept 19.
Hall Art Foundation, Reading, Vt. “Made in Vermont” features work by six Vermont artists, including Upper Valley painter Patrick Dunfey. Also on view: “The Solace of Amnesia,” a group show curated by Alexis Rockman and Katherine Gass Stowe from the Hall Foundation’s collections, and “Hope and Hazard: A Comedy of Eros,” curated by Eric Fischl, another group show of the foundation’s work.
Hood Downtown, Hanover. “The Firmament,” an exhibit of drawings by Toyin Ojih Odutola that explores the conceptualization of race, is on view through Sept. 2.
Kilton Library, West Lebanon. Elizabeth R. Moore, of Grantham, exhibits mixed-media paintings through Oct. 9.
Ledyard Gallery, Howe Library, Hanover. To celebrate her co-workers, Kris Burnett, who’s retiring as the library’s head of circulation services, has crafted 30 small woolen gifts that will be on display through Oct. 3.
Long River Gallery and Gifts, White River Junction. Piermont artist Stephanie Gordon’s show of encaustic (wax) paintings continues through August.
New London Hospital. The latest rotating art exhibition features Garrett Evans, a South Sutton, N.H.-based photographer; Bow, N.H., photographer Charles S. “Whitey” Joslin, Jr.; and Enfield painter Penny Koburger. Through August.
Norwich Public Library. Norwich resident Chad Finer exhibits his show “Back to Africa: A photographic return to Peace Corps Sierra Leone, 1968-70,” through August.
Philip Read Memorial Library, Plainfield. “Marking the Moments,” an exhibit of oil paintings by Plainfield artist M.J. Morse, continues through Wednesday.
Roth Center for Jewish Life, Hanover. Mort Wise shows photographs in “Fading Memories, Vanishing Voices” through Labor Day. A former Upper Valley resident who continues to summer in West Lebanon, Wise currently lives in Charlotte, N.C.
Royalton Memorial Library. Peter Shvetsov, a part-time Royalton resident and native of Saint Petersburg, Russia, shows a series of etchings. Two shows of his paintings are on view at South Royalton Market and Worthy Burger.
Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site, Cornish. “Natural Forces: Three Sculptors’ Visions,” featuring work by Fabienne Lasserre, Clive Moloney and Rosalyn Driscoll, is scattered around the site through Oct. 31.
Scavenger Gallery, White River Junction. The gallery will be closed Saturday through Aug. 31. Revolution, in White River Junction, has a collection of Hopkins’ bronze work on permanent display. Sterling pieces from Scavenger can be purchased through Rachel Obbard, owner of Long River Gallery and Gifts next door.
SculptureFest, 509 Prosper Road, Woodstock. Thirty-six artists, many based in the Upper Valley, exhibit new or continuing work in the annual outdoor showcase of three-dimensional art. Featured artists this year are Mary Admasian, of East Montpelier, and Robert Hitzig, of Montpelier. The show typically continues through foliage season. A guide to SculptureFest, including audio clips of artists speaking about their work, is available on the mobile app Otocast.
Steven Thomas, Inc. Fine Arts & Antiques, White River Junction. Work by Upper Valley “vintage” artists, such as Alice Standish Buell (1892-1964), Arthur B. Wilder (1857-1949) and Ilse Bischoff (1901-1990) is on view.
White River Craft Center, Randolph. “Jack Rowell, Cultural Documentarian: Portraits of Vermont People and Other Wildlife,” a retrospective of the Braintree, Vt., photographer’s work, is on view into the fall.
Zollikofer Gallery, White River Junction. A show of abstract oil paintings and mixed-media on black-walnut-stained paper by Dian Parker, the curator and director of South Royalton’s White River Gallery, is up through Sept. 26.
Alex Hanson can be reached at ahanson@vnews.com or 603-727-3207.
