BELMONT, Vt. – Seven Mount Holly artists will participate together for the first time in the spring Vermont Craft Council Open Studio Weekend on Saturday, May 23, and Sunday, May 24, from 10 a.m. – 5 p.m., at the Mount Holly Community Association (MHCA) Community Room, located beneath the library at 26 Maple Hill Road in Belmont, Vt.
The participating artists are Susan Presson, Della Thompson, Madeleine Fay, Chad Farrar, Carl Mitchell, Linda McGrath, and Zhena Dickinson Hadar. Throughout the weekend, the artists will rotate attendance, discuss their creative processes with visitors, and in some cases demonstrate their work live.
Presson describes herself as someone who “likes the intersection of painting and photography” and calls herself a “rank amateur and erratic creator.” Presson regularly gathers with fellow artists Fay and Dickinson Hadar for informal creative sessions every other week.
Thompson is a freelance artist and craft maker who has produced fine art and handmade crafts for more than 30 years. Her specialties include soft pastel painting, theorem painting, collage, portraiture, and landscape painting, as well as handcrafted fabric ornaments, toys, decorative pillows, and recreated cards.
For Fay, art has been a lifelong passion. “Over the years, I have created art using several media and now I concentrate on still-life paintings using oils,” Fay said. She has participated in Open Studio Weekend for several years and has also taught basic drawing classes for older adults.
Farrar, a seventh-generation Vermonter, carves handcrafted spoons from native green wood such as apple, birch, and cherry harvested from Vermont forests. The wood retains its internal moisture through an air-drying or kiln-drying process. His work is inspired by the Scandinavian woodworking tradition of “sloyd,” derived from the Swedish word “slöjd,” meaning handicraft or skillful work. The sloyd method teaches woodworking through progressively challenging projects designed to develop the whole person.
Mount Holly painter Mitchell has been creating art since the age of 12. Now 85, Mitchell continues to paint the Vermont landscapes he loves.
McGrath has been a quilter for more than 20 years, but admits that gardening becomes the priority in summer. She will be presenting two quilts at the event that depict spring and summer; she playfully challenges visitors to decide which is which.
Hadar, a self-taught artist, draws inspiration from the landscapes, nature, and people of Mount Holly. She began painting in 2020 with the goal of capturing as many scenes of Mount Holly as possible. “I still haven’t run out of inspiration,” she said. Hadar says her aim is “to infuse her paintings with joy, gratitude and admiration,” emotions she associates with life in Vermont. Her paintings often begin with photographs before evolving into finished works on her dining room table.
Hadar also organizes the Mount Holly Community Association’s local art group, which meets biweekly as an informal gathering for artists to create together and build community connections. The Mount Holly Community Association was established in 1978 to support, promote, and preserve community-based activities and to maintain the MHCA Community Center building, home to both the town library and community room.
The Vermont Craft Council’s Open Studio Weekend is a statewide celebration of the visual arts and creative process, giving visitors the opportunity to meet artists and craftspeople in their studios and creative spaces. The event encourages appreciation for the artistic process and highlights the important role artists play in the vitality of Vermont communities.
Held twice each year, the studio tour guides visitors through historic Vermont villages and scenic backroads. Martha Fitch, director of the Vermont Craft Council, says the appeal of the tour is that “it takes you through small towns and back roads, with the yellow Open Studio signs and the Vermont Studio Tour map easily guiding visitors to the studio location.”
Free Vermont Studio Tour booklets containing maps and directions are available from participating artists, galleries, and art centers, or may be downloaded from www.vermontcrafts.com.
The Vermont Craft Council is a nonprofit organization founded in 1990 to support Vermont’s visual arts community. Open Studio Weekend is supported by the Vermont Arts Council and Point Radio.