Cleaning the Studio and Getting Ready for CVRAN Marathon

 I'm going to be doing a project called  March Arts Marathon during the month of March, in which I make a commitment to make work every day of the month and share images with supporters. Here's the letter I sent out to potential supporters on February 2.  So far 25 wonderful folks have responded with donations that will help support refugees:

I am participating in a project of the Central Vermont Refugee Action Network (CVRAN) called the March Arts Marathon to raise funds for their Asylum Seekers Assistance Fund that pays for legal bonds, living expenses, and lawyers’ fees.

I am hoping you will go to my page on their site https://cvran.org/janet-van-fleet/ and donate to help this effort. My part of the bargain is to send all donors (who are supporting this effort through me) information about what I'm working on in my art practice in the month of March. During the pandemic, I have not been going to the studio as often as previously, but I will commit to doing something each day (even if it is art projects with my grandsons, with whom my husband and I are podded up). My aspiration is to send daily emails to those who sign on, with an image. But if I fall behind with reporting in to you, I will certainly post at least once a week on my blog at https://janetvanfleet.blogspot.com/ detailing what I've been up to, and send you a link.

I have an idea of making small booklets to be sent out to donors at the end of the month (with images of work I've done, kids' drawings, etc...), but we'll see if I get that together. No promises yet.

I hope you are healthy, happy, hopeful, and hankering to help refugees!

The studio was such a mess that I had to go in and spend over eight hours over the last week or so hoeing it out and organizing shelves and materials. Here's how it looks now. Whew! Let the artmaking begin!

 

Rolling On at Studio Place Arts

 

Studio Place Arts (SPA) has four great new shows in their galleries at 201 North Main Street in Barre, Vermont. In the Main Gallery on the first floor (newly painted with one gorgeous white wall), the exhibit is all about wheels, which has been a big part of my work in a variety of ways for the last ten years or so. I have four pieces in the show, the earliest (2007) being Feeding the World, from my series called Rolling Boil.

I made another series of four pieces that featured wheeled chairs in 2017, all of which were built on small chairs, had wheels, and bones. This is the second of those. It uses a modified doll carriage, and contains an antique slide of a naked man in a wheelchair, affixed to the top of a wooden box that acts as a sort of light table. A piece of white paper at the bottom of the box reflects light up through the image.

And finally, two pieces using cars from my current group of large, wall-hung figures, that I wrote about a few posts ago.

SPA is very careful with Covid precautions, so I hope folks will feel comfortable seeing the really wonderful exhibits that are there right now. Here's a flier to show what all the shows involve and information about gallery hours: