As we arrive at a new and promising year
Stone Valley Arts extends gratitude for the generous support from grants awarded in 2020
that have helped us to sustain operations and continue with historic renovation
and have been vital to keeping cultural programming alive
and accessible to the community through a most challenging year.
THANK YOU ! THANK YOU !
COVID-19 RELIEF GRANT
Offered through the National Endowment of the Arts and the Vermont Arts Council
The Hills and Hollows Grant
Offered through the Vermont Community Foundation
Cultural Facilities Grant
Offered through the Vermont Arts Council
The 1772 Foundation Vermont Historic Preservation Matching Grant
Offered through a collaboration between The Preservation Trust of Vermont and the 1772 Foundation.
Essential Character and Services Matching Grant
Offered through The Preservation Trust of Vermont
and is made possible through the generous support of the Johnson Family Foundation.
The Robert Sincerbeaux Fund Matching Grant
Offered through The Preservation Trust of Vermont
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Thank you to everyone that has generously
contributed to our Capital Campaign!
With your help and commitment we are able to move
forward with important renovations that will make our
our historic building even more comfortable, more beautiful
and accessible as a cultural art center for our community.
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looking ahead !
Here's what we have in store for you in the coming months in 2021!
Theatre in the Woods to present an opportunity to participate in the TEN MINUTE PLAY PROJECT
DANCE THREAD a collaboration between dance choreographers into a video/film
Opening SVA Gallery Exhibit : PORTRAITS OF A COMMUNITY : PHOTOGRAPHS AND STORIES
Coming in the Spring ! COLLAGE KITS FOR KIDS !
VIRTUAL MUSIC CONCERT with pianist, Gary Schmidt and friends
AND
Please check out the Classes and Events page for information, schedules and registration for
the following on-going Zoom offerings
Yoga with Brook Hughes-Muse
Qi Gong with Mary Joan Waid
Ballet and Modern Dance with Erika Schmidt
Sunday Evening Social Dance Club
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Have you seen our new sign?
Through a unique partnership with
the Poultney Downtown Revitalization Committee
and REclaimED / Makerspace
we have a permanent road sign in front of our building on Main Street !
Thank you to
Susan Macleod for the design
PDRC for help with funding
REclaimED for the fabrication
and Gary Schmidt for painting.
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We invite you to visit the
SVA ART GALLERY AND GIFT SHOP
Click on the green link above to be taken to the gallery and gift shop.
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Stone Valley Arts is seeking a grand piano for purchase or by donation.
In order to attract professional musicians and continue to develop high caliber music programming
we understand the necessity for a high quality piano. If you can be of help to SVA in our search,
please contact Gary Schmidt at: stonevalleyartcenter@gmail.com
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It's never too late to donate to our Capital Campaign!
$200,000 * 200 Gifts Needed * 200th Birthday Celebration
Stone Valley Arts at Fox Hill has been Inspiring Creativity in Poultney and throughout the Lakes Region for eight years and remains a vital force of cultural activity in these challenging times. SVA is fortunate to have a permanent home in the former Masonic Lodge, a historic treasure built in 1822. Restoration is well underway, and there is still much to do: new slate roof, front porch repairs, and exterior painting, for starters. SVA's Capital Campaign has a goal of $200,000, and we are already more than halfway there! Only $84,000 remains to be raised. We invite you to be part of our fundraising and our future. Stone Valley Arts at Fox Hill is a public good, an important community asset, a cultural resource to be enjoyed by you, your family and your neighbors. Together we can achieve success!
Please make checks payable to Stone Valley Arts.
P.O. Box 47 Poultney, VT 05764
Actuaries estimate we will need 200 gifts to reach our goal: Five at $5,000, Ten at $2,000, Fifteen at $1,000, Twenty at $500, Thirty at $250, and 120 gifts of $100 or less. Please give at whatever level is comfortable for you. We appreciate every gift. Thank you!
SVA is a 501(c)3 tax exempt organization. Donations are tax-exempt to the extent allowed by the law.
Be one of 200 donors and receive an invitation to the Bicentennial Celebration in 2022!
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WINTER is here.. days are short, nights are long and we are even more homebound,
just think about all the things that lift you up and that have helped you to cope at this time.
... books, music, movies, writing or journaling, poetry, photography, drawing,
painting, building things, telling stories, yoga, cooking or dancing !
The arts are vital collective voice that soothe, heal,
nurture self expression and help up to stay engaged and connected.
STAY WELL.
STAY CREATIVE.
and let us hear from you !
WE LOOK FORWARD TO SEEING YOU IN 2021 !
Erika Lawlor Schmidt
Executive/Artistic Director
Stone Valley Art on BLACK LIVES MATTER!
We continue to mourn the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and the many other innocent Black lives that have been taken by shameful racial violence. Following recent events, including the inspiring wave of activism across the United States and around the world, it has been all the more disturbing to see police violence against peaceful protestors exercising their right to speak out for racial justice. The growing trend for a paramilitary police response to these protests has been brutal and further shows the need for radical reform.
Realizing that we are neither a very racially diverse state nor organization, we are all the more committed to becoming better allies. While it is easy to blame others, we have a moral obligation first to examine ourselves in order to address our own biases and take the necessary steps.
In these trying times, it is our profound belief that art can be an answer. Creativity is a means by which we seek to reveal truths and express individual and collective experience in order to shape and heal humanity. While it may be tempting to lament our limited resources in reaching such a goal, to do so would not acknowledge a black community that has been fighting this struggle with limited resources for its entire existence. As so many people still suffer inhumane and unjust treatment, Americans must realize the moral responsibility we all owe to each other and to society at large.
Therefore, we invite our community to share their creative projects that support the current movement for equality in the United States. Please send us art, poetry, and writing that expresses your observation and experience of this pivotal moment in American history, so that we may post it on our website. Please contact us at: stonevalleyartscenter@gmail.com
The image above is by Richard Weis in response to Black Lives Matter.
###
Read before the beginning the June 10, 2020 Vermont House sessions last week by Robin Chesnut-Tangerman.
Inspiration
Each of us is here because we are inspired to serve. Our inspiration comes from different sources. For some it is an obligation to give back, for others an opportunity to fix things gone wrong or to chart a new course for Vermont that will be more fair and equitable.
But for all of us, I think it is fair to say that our inspiration is something larger than ourselves; a gift perhaps, or a calling. Something spiritual even.
Moving from the spiritual to the mundane, dictionary.com defines inspiration as “the process of being mentally stimulated to do or feel something, especially to do something creative.” They also note the spiritual dimension - as in divine inspiration.
But the fundamental meaning of the Latin root word is simply to breathe in. To breathe in. In-spire.
To breathe in oxygen - and with it to breathe in ideas and stimulation and motivation and determination and creativity and devotion. And divine grace.
And all of this is lost when I Can’t Breathe.
###
We continue to mourn the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and the many other innocent Black lives that have been taken by shameful racial violence. Following recent events, including the inspiring wave of activism across the United States and around the world, it has been all the more disturbing to see police violence against peaceful protestors exercising their right to speak out for racial justice. The growing trend for a paramilitary police response to these protests has been brutal and further shows the need for radical reform.
Realizing that we are neither a very racially diverse state nor organization, we are all the more committed to becoming better allies. While it is easy to blame others, we have a moral obligation first to examine ourselves in order to address our own biases and take the necessary steps.
In these trying times, it is our profound belief that art can be an answer. Creativity is a means by which we seek to reveal truths and express individual and collective experience in order to shape and heal humanity. While it may be tempting to lament our limited resources in reaching such a goal, to do so would not acknowledge a black community that has been fighting this struggle with limited resources for its entire existence. As so many people still suffer inhumane and unjust treatment, Americans must realize the moral responsibility we all owe to each other and to society at large.
Therefore, we invite our community to share their creative projects that support the current movement for equality in the United States. Please send us art, poetry, and writing that expresses your observation and experience of this pivotal moment in American history, so that we may post it on our website. Please contact us at: stonevalleyartscenter@gmail.com
The image above is by Richard Weis in response to Black Lives Matter.
###
Read before the beginning the June 10, 2020 Vermont House sessions last week by Robin Chesnut-Tangerman.
Inspiration
Each of us is here because we are inspired to serve. Our inspiration comes from different sources. For some it is an obligation to give back, for others an opportunity to fix things gone wrong or to chart a new course for Vermont that will be more fair and equitable.
But for all of us, I think it is fair to say that our inspiration is something larger than ourselves; a gift perhaps, or a calling. Something spiritual even.
Moving from the spiritual to the mundane, dictionary.com defines inspiration as “the process of being mentally stimulated to do or feel something, especially to do something creative.” They also note the spiritual dimension - as in divine inspiration.
But the fundamental meaning of the Latin root word is simply to breathe in. To breathe in. In-spire.
To breathe in oxygen - and with it to breathe in ideas and stimulation and motivation and determination and creativity and devotion. And divine grace.
And all of this is lost when I Can’t Breathe.
###
D. Ciobanu, Pieces of Me, acrylic on nine small canvases
Pieces of Me (Us)
I am one, I am all.
We are one
You, us, all sisters and brothers,
Have the same DNA
We are the same molecules
Same particles of the universe
Same breeze, same color, same smell.
DNA is never wrong
You cannot change it, you cannot color it, you cannot dilute it
We are one.
Three million years of us, all in one, all apart
I am all, I am one.
My crying splits us
My DNA cries.
Dedicated to all human (R)evolutionary movements.
California, 2013. Vermont, 2020.
D. Ciobanu
Pieces of Me (Us)
I am one, I am all.
We are one
You, us, all sisters and brothers,
Have the same DNA
We are the same molecules
Same particles of the universe
Same breeze, same color, same smell.
DNA is never wrong
You cannot change it, you cannot color it, you cannot dilute it
We are one.
Three million years of us, all in one, all apart
I am all, I am one.
My crying splits us
My DNA cries.
Dedicated to all human (R)evolutionary movements.
California, 2013. Vermont, 2020.
D. Ciobanu