Sharon Webster
169 Park St
Burlington, VT 05401
ph: 802-863-5217
RECENT & UPCOMING
FRIDAY, MAY 4TH, 2018
MEMBERS EXHIBITION
Reception 5-9pm
S.P.A.C.E. Gallery, 266 Pine Street, Burlington VT
"LOOSE WEAVE / GARLIC PRESS" detail by Sharon Webster
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Coming in 2019...!
C A D E N C E
Detail of work in progress: "Handed Down"
New body of work exploring personal and shared visual cadance, conversation and investigation.
Many-media, sculptural and two-dimensional work with
EVE JACOBS-CARNAHAN, LESLIE ROTH, ALMUTH PALINKAS and TINA ESCAJA.
The title of the show, Cadence, is based on a poem by Tina Escaja.
208 Flynn Avenue, Burlington, Vermont
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Click HERE to hear my interview with Ross Cagenello as part of the Fomite Author Spotlight series. We discuss my background as an artist-poet in Canada, the connection between pierogies and cabaret, and much more.
Thank you, Ross!
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with Steven Ray Smith and David Cavanagh at MALVERN BOOKS in Austin, Texas.
613 W. 29th St
Austin, TX 78705
512-322-2097
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DARK MATTER
Through Oct. 28, 2017
Hoursrs: THURS/FRI/SAT ~ NOON-5PM
S.P.A.C.E. Gallery’s annual October show that explores the unseen, the existential and the dark.
Jurried by Christy Mitchell
266 PINE ST. BURL VT
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ART HOP 2017
Sept. 8, 9, 10
Howard Space Center
3rd Floor
Howard & Pine Sts.
ART IN THE HALLWAY
Available at a reduced rate
and other FOMITE PRESS titles
are available at 8 SPACE Studio
on the ground floor
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SEABA MEMBERS SHOW
June through July, 2017
VCAM, 208 Flynn Ave (in the back)
RECEPTION First Friday, JULY 7, 2017
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“WILD FIBERS”
Reception - Friday, June 2, 5-7 PM
Emile A. Gruppe Gallery
22 Barber Farm Rd., Jericho VT
An exhibit by 13 fabulous funky fiber artists of
Vermont Surface Design Association
show runs
JUNE 2 - JULY 9, 2017
The gallery is open 10am to 3pm, Thursday – Sunday or by appointment (802-899-3211 or emilegruppe.com).
Eve Jacobs-Carnahan will give a talk, “25 Years of Knitters Speaking Out” on Friday, June 16, 6:30-7:30 PM.
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"UNDER CONSTRUCTION"
STUDIO PLACE ARTS, Barre, Vermont
March 14 - April 15, 2017
by Shannon Lee Gilmour exploring the "Under Construction" exhibit as well as two other exhibits at Studio Place Arts until April 15, 2017.
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A show about the joining of 2 or more dissimilar media to create a finished artwork, so that one plus one equals more than two. Assembled by Sue Higby and guest curator Mark Waskow.
Exhibiting Artists: Tom Batey; John Brickels; Elizabeth Chapek; Robert Chapla; Jesse Cooper; Joan Curtis; Nicole Czapinski; Diane Gabriel; Diane Elliott Gayer; Robert Hitzig; Lynda Knisley; Tinka Theresa Martell; Rob Millard-Mendez; Tuyen My Nguyen; Torin Porter; Leslie Roth; Aaron Stein; Robert Towne; Janet Van Fleet; Sharon Webster; Sean Williams
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March 7- April 28, 2017
"FOLLOWING THE RULES,
BREAKING THE RULES"
T.W. WOOD GALLERY
46 Barre Street, Montpelier, VT
OPENING RECEPTION
TURSDAY, MARCH 9, 2017
"LIFT" by Sharon Webster
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THE ART OF WINTER
A group show curated by Christy Mitchell
and Ric Kasini Kadour at
S.P.A.C.E. Gallery
266 Pine St. Burlington, Vermont
Winter Moon, S Webster
SHOW RUNS through MARCH 31, 2017
Gallery hours Thursday - Sat., Noon- 5pm
Many artists and lovely description of the show featured in the elegant Arts quarterly here,
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February 20 - March 31, 2017
RECEPTION - THURS, FEB 23, 5:30 PM
"FIBER EXPRESSIONS"
University of Vermont
Burlington, VT
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Friday, Jan. 6th 2017 from 5-7pm ish
OPENING RECEPTION
"A World Free of Violence"
Main Street Landing/ Union Station at 1 Main
Art BY and FOR people affected by domestic violence… via Steps to End Domestic Violence sponsored by Art’s Alive. Hear artists talk about their work – and enjoy music presented by local guitar teacher and performer, Francis Llewellyn Andreas. Image below: "Pink Mother Totem, Protection"
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November 9 - December 9, 2016
"Surface Expressions"
Inventive Fiber Art by members of VT Surface Design Association
Chaffee Art Center
16 S Main Street
Rutland, VT
http://www.chaffeeartcenter.org
RECEPTION - FRIDAY NOV. 18, 5-7 PM
Eve Jacobs-Carnaham, Artist Talk Dec. 3, 2017
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SePT 2 - OcT 3rd, 2016
The First 50 Show!
Art at MAIN STREET LANDING UNION STATION
1 Main Street, Burlington, Vermont
group show sponsored by
Art’s Alive & SEABA
Curated by Sarah Drexler
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Friday, September 9-11, 2016
Among 35 artists in the annual
The SEABA Gallery at 404 Pine Street
Burlington, VT
!
AND...
on fRIDAY & sATuRday
OPEN STUDIO 3rd floor at 4 Howard Street (corner of Howard & Pine St)
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Lovely film of "Visionary Conspiracy" made by Shannon Lee Gilmour, including an interview of me at 4;22 mark.
But watch it all. Sensitive details of beautiful work by 14 artists... and other interviews!
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The backstory matters with this work...
"Stairs for Heaven and Earth"
Mixed Media
This “staircase” wearing clothes is metaphor and abstraction. The stairway wears clothing that I wore to a wedding where my mother had a stroke and died a few days later.
The form of the church kneeler, or prie-dieu, struck me as poignant as I moved from wedding to funeral. The kneelers were often covered with nice fabric – or velvet like my skirt. My kneeler grew into a staircase. Apart from being interesting as a form for its own sake, it represents generational support, the way we stand on the shoulders of those who come before us.
The stitching on the piece became an outward expression of the urge to heal, as well as a way to express reverence for (her) life through the use of rich golds & silvers. As I tried out various materials, methods and forms, I could hear my mom’s wise advice to try new approaches in order to “get the effect,” as she put it, in my sculpture.
Seen from the side, the stairs are flat. The absence, the negative space, is as important as what remains. The sensual details of clothing….what could be more personal?
"Mother Light"
Mother Light is my mother’s face, upside down now as she swings from the heavens. It glows as moon, archetype, cycle, circle, warmth. It’s illuminated by an LED bulb and hangs by an old-fashioned work cord.
Thank you to the Surface Design Association of Vermont for curating this show.
This show runs concurrently with an outdoor exhibit called “Soft Bomb Barre.” Around downtown Barre, there will be an array of fiber art installations and soft, colorful “explosions,” special exhibits, talks, a moving pop-up weaving studio, and more. The show will also overlap with the Barre Heritage Festival which brings together hundreds of visitors for a weekend of parades, music and fun July 30.
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SLICE OF LIFE at MAIN STREET LANDING UNION STATION
1 Main Street, Burlington, Vermont
group show sponsored by
Art’s Alive & SEABA
JULY 1ST – AUGUST 31st, 2016
Thanks to Sarah Drexler of SEABA for curating this show!
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June 1 - 28, 2016
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DIVERSIFIERS
A POETRY READING AT ONE ARTS CENTER 72 N. Champlain St. Burlington's Old North End on
SUNDAY AFTERNOON March 13th @ 3 o’clock
SUE D. BURTON
TINA ESCAJA,
KRISTIN DYKSTRA translating from Spanish
DAVID CAVANAGH
SHARON WEBSTER
Five accomplished poets read from their work in the evocative setting of Contexere, a month-long art show celebrating the complex dance between verbal and visual communication.
Cookies will be served! FREE!
CONTEXERE (Latin - to weave, entwine, braid)
A month-long group show at O.N.E. Arts Center weaving together the multiple strands of texts and images, words and visual arrangement in space and time, and exploring the complex processes of verbal and non-verbal communication. Contexere will open on Friday evening, March 4th with a cocktail party featuring pop-up readings and performances by the artists from 6-9 p.m. Over the course of the month, O.N.E. Arts will host a series of events and workshops further exploring the themes of the show including
- A drop-off creative writing & zine station all month
"LATE AND SOON"
Musical a cappella adaptation of “So Little Time, Words and Images for a World in Climate Crisis” Green Writers Press 2014, including my poem, "Resistance." Thomas L. Read has composed new music for the choral musicians, Social Band.
JULY 9 - SEPT. 5, 2015
FLYNNDOG, 208 Flynn Ave., Burlington, Vermont
8 visual artists / 8 writers. New artwork that spans a range of new and classic media and shares a common thread of visual intensity
Bren Alvarez, Mercha Bautista, Roger Coleman, Tina Escaja, Genese Grill, Jon Turner, Sharon Webster, Marian Willmott.
invented & curated by Sharon Webster
Show runs through Sept. 5, 2015.
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In celebration of Burlington's Old North End Ramble......until August 31, 2015.
Five mixed media paintings at North End Studios, 294 N Winooski Ave, Burlington
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ARCHIVES...
ART + SOUL Thurday June 11, 2015 5:30-9 pm
College Street, Burlington, VT
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"WE ARE THE SOUTH END" Group show featuring artists of the South End Arts District, Burlington, Vermont
SEABA Gallery, 404 Pine Street, Burlington, VT
Opening reception JANUARY 9, 2014 5-8 pm Through Jan. 3
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PHOTOS OF BOOK LAUNCH.....! Here!
BOOK READING, LAUNCH &
CELEBRATION WITH ART EXHIBIT
OCTOBER 5, 2014 3 pm
For “Everyone Lives Here,” poems and artwork. Howard Space, 1st floor, main hall, 4 Howard Street, Burlington, Vermont.
Buy book HERE! https://www.createspace.com/4845564
Review of "Everyone Lives Here" by Nancy Means Wright:
"Sharon Webster divides her fabulous collection of poems and artwork into four seasons, beginning with spring where 'Fragile elbows of light" nudge the sleeper and make her, like a Mary Poppins, "fall gently out and / down, but also up." We breathe in grass, and the "wild / huge earth" with its "white teeth / pulling," and discover that "step after step / is everyone's name."
Like Whitman in his Leaves of Grass, Webster does, indeed, celebrate everything and everyone. In the poem TEMPLE GRANDIN, we meet the autistic activist who "senses what is / invisible to others," and in WEEPING IN THE KMART, PREMENSTRUAL (I love these offbeat titles!), we encounter the poet's Alzheimer/Down Syndrome companion, Jackie, a "wet / berry of pain, a hanged human voice...I imagine air and pull her up." In ALMOST THANKSGIVING, UNSTEADY," the developmentally challenged Thelma "takes a broom from every neighbor on Buell Street" (but "always brings them back,") and vigorously sweeps the pavement: "Swoosh. Swoosh." In THE CLEANING LADY, a resentful worker who "imagines her eyes / becoming rags" still manages to find "some beauty / beneath the dirt." And in YES, the speaker admits her "special outlook on life. / It comes from the dirt."
There are autobiographical poems, too, like the art teacher who teaches "the freedom to be imperfect." After her hysterectomy, the poet promises "to do good things / forever if I ever get better" and allows herself to "cry." She visits the gym where sweat is "held / in high esteem"; she praises "the democracy / of a locker room" where "what was sunken is indeed / ample and dusky, and naked / with other women on the warm cedar planks." In THE MUSIC OF THEIR NAMES, she takes on the ignored women artists of the Renaissance and pledges to "think of what was forgotten. / Think of how to find it again."
Like her vibrant artwork (a Remington typewriter, for example, that spews out a mass of fragmented pages on its top), Webster's poems, with their whimsical line breaks, become a virtual painting on the page. The reader will find a surprise in every line, a fresh, sensuous way of seeing and knowing. S/he will want to read the collection over and over again, and meet, hug and weep over Everyone Who Lives Here."
~Nancy Means Wright is the author of 18 books of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry - including Acts of Balance, (Finishing Line Press ’14), her most recent volume of poems which gives intimate voice to the journeys of two women – Mary Wollstonecraft and contemporary writer, Fay Hubbard - living centuries apart. She lives in Middlebury, Vermont http://www.nancymeanswright.com/
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.2014
Thursday, JUNE 5 reception ART + SOUL
91 College St. Dunkiel Saunders, Burlington, VT music: RED HOT JUBA!
Show through June 28, 2014
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THURS APRIL 17, 7PM GREEN WRITERS PRESS PARTY & POETRY READING
PHOENIX BOOKS, 191 Bank Street in Burlington, VT is throwing the publisher of “So Little Time, Words and Images for a World in Climate Crisis,” a Celebration Party! Hope you can come!
& the following day…
FRIDAY APRIL 18, 6PM SO LITTLE TIME Poetry Reading
Montpelier, VT Kellogg-Hubbard Library, 135 Main Street, Hayes Room, part of POEM CITY month in Montpelier
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JAN. 2014
“SO LITTLE TIME, Words and Images for a World in Climate Crisis."
Poetry/photography anthology including: Greg Delanty,Mary Oliver,Seamus Heaney,Julia Alvarez,Billy Collins,Dalai Lama,Dave Cavanagh..... & me.
Stunning photos of our natural world and provocative poetry Precentage of proceeds donated to the environmental organization, 350vt.org, Order from Pub:
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Large Works: December 6 - January 31st
at The Soda Plant
266 Pine Street
Burlington, VT 05401
(802) 578-2512
via S.P.A.C.E. Gallery
www.thesodaplant.com
Gallery Hours: Monday – Friday 9am – 5pm, Saturday 12 – 5pm
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MEMBERS' ART SHOW
& FESTIVAL OF TREES AND LIGHT
Dec. 6, 2013 - Jan. 5, 2014
Helen Day Art Center, 90 Pond St., Stowe, VT
Gallery Hours: Wednesday - Sunday 12pm-5pm and by appointment
Opening Reception: Friday, December 6th at 5:00PM
802-253-8358
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REPRESENT Sept. 6- Nov.16, 2013
S.P.A.C.E. Gallery & The Soda Plant, 266 Pine St. Burlington, VT
"Purity & Unruliness" and "Wrenched."
Reception, Fri. Sept. 6, 5- midnight
Gallery Hours: Wednesday – Saturday 12 – 5pm and by appointment
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BURLINGTON BOOK FESTIVAL
SAT. SEPTEMBER 21, 1pm
http://burlingtonbookfestival.com/?page_id=2422
http://burlingtonbookfestival.com/?page_id=79
Film House, Main St. Landing, "The Novel Graphic: A Summit." Panel discussion on Word and Image.
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FEBRUARY 1 - APRIL 20, 2012
The Soda Plant, 266 Pine St. Burlington, Vermont
LARGE WORKS
Featuring BESSIE, giant puppet-like sculpture of Sharon’s tobacco chewing, rifle-toting great-grandmother & mixed media piece, THINKING CAP AND NOTEBOOKS Opening Reception: Friday, February 1 from 5 – 9 pm Gallery Hours: Monday – Friday from 9 – 5pm, Saturday from 11 – 5pm www.thesodaplant.com poem by s. webster below _________________________________________________________________ TOMORROW IT WILL PROBABLY BE HARD TO GET UP BUT TELL ME ANYWAY For Bessie There's not much to be surprised about now. The rain that is falling was predicted well in advance. "A storm tonight," was how the radio put it. Serves us right. No surprises. The window-shade shifts and slouches over the black yawn of the open window. Moves like someone is out there breathing. Real even, regular breaths. So what? asks the night. My great-grandmother chewed tobacco and shot long streams of muscular, brown juice into a pedaled wastebasket that squawked every time her foot cocked it open. She had fingers long as candlesticks and knuckles like loose marbles. She could shoot a rifle and once shot a man when he tried to rob the family tavern – stealing hard won money from countless hours frying countless chickens in iron skillets big as tabletops. She shot him, but he deserved it, makin’ her only son's wife lay nine months pregnant all over the cold restaurant floor. That was the Depression. Things like that happened; they were used to it. My middle name is for her, Elizabeth, but they called her Bessie. She lost her teeth around 30 and her husband before that. Never replaced either. She dyed her hair cold black and wore it in waves till she died at 93. There's a photograph I think of: she's belting back something from a long-necked bottle, her body a long sling-shot, tough and graceful, an easy curve cocky as any man. So what? asks the night. I was born like this. But when I think of Bessie I am tall. Like her, my finger reaches the trigger.
-Sharon Webster |
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THROUGH DECEMBER, 2012
"Mother Light" and "Up Close at a Distance," from STAIRS FOR HEAVEN AND EARTH in group show, "20 MEDIUMS" at
THE SODA PLANT, 266 PINE STREET, BURLINGTON, Vermont
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- SEPT. 7 & 8, 2012
South End ARTHOP, Sharon Webster Studio
3rd Floor, 2-4 Howard St. Burlington, VT
Current work & Stairs for Heaven and Earth
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- FRIDAY, AUGUST 31, 2012 5-9 PM
Arthop Preview Party for "20 Mediums," group show at The Soda Plant, Pine St. Burlington, VT. Show runs through September 29, 2012
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- MAY- JULY 30, 2012 FLYNNDOG 208 Flynn Ave. Burlington VT
THE THIRD FLOOR SHOW
from "Stairs for Heaven and Earth"
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"Mother Light" mixed media from
STAIRS FOR HEAVEN AND EARTH, 2012
Copyright 2010 Sharon Webster. All rights reserved.
169 Park St
Burlington, VT 05401
ph: 802-863-5217