Karen Kamenetzky Fiber Art

I seem to be on a roll writing about why I love the community I live in and specifically how that influences my art.

A little over a year ago a neighbor had the idea of  creating a group of artists from my area of West Brattleboro, VT. My first reaction was skepticism that there were enough local artists to sustain a group. Boy was I wrong. All kinds of creative folks were living within a few miles of me and came crawling (figuratively) out of the woods!

Brattleboro West Arts has evolved into a cohesive largish group of artists working in numerous media; paint, glass, sculpture, fiber, ceramics and more. Our monthly potluck/meetings are opportunities to share our work, our struggles as artists, marketing ideas and lots of great food! I’ve come to really value getting to know these neighbors and learning from them. This fall we will have our second Studio Tour (more on that later) and the caliber of talent is amazing. Ideas for future joint ventures are percolating. There’s a real feeling of possibility. I find this all feeds me as an artist and helps keep me charged up about my own work.

I wonder how unusual this is for artists working in various disciplines to join together based on sharing the same neighborhood. Has anyone else had this experience?

This entry was posted on March 23, 2010 at 3:49 pm and is filed under Art community. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.