Several weeks of preparation culminated Friday at the Montpelier Alive Art Walk in two very successful and satisfying shows that included my photography.  One was with my New Group of Seven friends and the other a marvelous collaboration with a cellist and a painter.

The New Group of Seven has been meeting over the past year and learning, by sharing work and ideas and honest critique, all so that each of us can become better photographers. One device we’ve used is to give ourselves “homework.” While I occasionally feel the same dread I had in junior high school, I’ve also found the exercise to be very useful in stretching what I do and challenging what I know.

This show featured works in progress from an assignment to photograph common objects, mine, as I wrote about last week, was ice cubes. The pop-up gallery space looked fabulous filled with all of our work, and we had the added delights of treats provided by Liberty Chocolates and live music provided by Susan Picking. Even on a cold and snowy night, more than three hundred people visited the gallery over the course of four hours to talk about and enjoy our work! My friend and member of the Group shared these photos of the evening.

The second show, titled “Reflections,” was a collaboration with two friends, cellist Melissa Perley, and landscape painter, Hope Burgoyne. I showed 100 images of reflections in water and ice while Melissa played music and Hope’s unique set of images graced the walls of the North Branch Cafe. All together well over one hundred people heard and saw the three performances. Thankfully my wife (and major supporter!) remembered to get a photo with her phone which gives you an idea of the setup! And, if you are in Vermont on Valentine’s Day, we’ll have three more performances of “Reflections” at Axel’s Gallery in Waterbury between 4:00 and 8:00.

Creating art can be both physically and emotionally hard work. In the end, however, it can also be immensely satisfying. That was certainly the case with these two shows. My deep appreciation to the many people who made these shows possible with support and encouragement.

08 Feb This entry was published on February 8, 2015 at 9:43 am. It’s filed under John Snell, People, Photograph, Vermont and tagged Art Walk, Axel's Gallery, Hope Burgoyne, John Snell, Liberty Chocolate, Melissa Perley, Montpelier Alive, North Branch Cafe, Photography, Susan Picking, Vermont. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.