In the Gallery This Month

Jack Alan Stewart - Sculpture
Dates: Friday, April 1st through Saturday, April 30th
Location: Main Gallery
Website Link: http://www.barnettradepost.com

Stumped!? Hand-Chiseled Hardwoods “Stumped!? Hand-Chiseled Hardwoods” is the title of Jack Alan Stewart’s one-man exhibit this April in the Main Gallery at Catamount Arts. Stewart, a well-known local artist and teacher, has designed many pieces especially for this new show, which will be on view for the entire month. A special reception honoring Stewart will be held at Catamount from 5:00pm – 7:00pm Friday, April 8. The public is cordially invited to attend this reception free of charge. Refreshments will be served.

Jack Stewart has been practicing art since he was a young child. His experience ranges from watercolor to oil painting, print making to etching, pen, pencil and charcoal to pastels. He has worked with wax, clay, cement, plaster of paris, pewter, lead, copper, zinc, marble, granite, soapstone, papier mache and many different varieties of hard and soft woods. He has created two-dimensional works, reliefs and free standing pieces. Stewart holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Swain School of Design with a major in sculpting. In addition, he holds a Masters of Art from Goddard College with a double major in sculpting and teaching. Stewart brings years of experience in the practice and instruction of drawing, watercolor painting and sculpting along with less familiar Japanese traditions such as sumi-e and calligraphy. Jack likes to quote an Eastern teaching saying: "Tell me and I forget; show me and I understand; let me experience and I know." It is the last part of the saying that is most important: the act of living, being and doing. In life, in art, it is important to practice over and over again so that what was at first most difficult and unnatural becomes a very wonderful and natural act. Sculpture is just one of Stewart’s many forms of artistic expression. “My sculptures are meant to be touched. They have organic shapes chiseled by hand and released from the wood,” Stewart said recently. “It’s important that we honor the original life-form of the tree from which each sculpture springs forth.” In sculpting, I attempt to bring out the wood’s natural beauty and the designs the life of the tree itself has already expressed,” he added. “If I don’t have a preconceived notion of what I’m hoping a finished piece will become, I ask the wood to direct me.” “And sometimes, despite any opinion I may have started a piece with, the tree has a very different idea of where I’m to take it as an art form!” he continued. “Much of my work is not consciously recognizable, and I’m often asked what a particular piece is. My answer is usually … wood,” he concluded. As a special feature of this exhibit, Stewart and his wife L.J. have also created a beautiful companion book that will be available for purchase. Copies of the book are now on display at Catamount.

LeAnn Rimes Live in St. Johnsbury, VT

LeAnn Rimes

An Acoustic Concert to Benefit Kingdom County Productions

7:00pm, Sunday, October 23

Fuller Hall, St. Johnsbury Academy

Tickets: $87, $77, $67, $110 (Gold Circle)

Tickets on sale online here starting Monday, April 4th and at the Catamount Arts box office starting Tuesday April 5th.

Kingdom County Productions (KCP) is proud to announce its plans to present multi-platinum Grammy winning country music star LeAnn Rimes in an intimate acoustic concert to benefit KCP’s performing arts programs for the local community and area schools. Tickets are available at Catamount Arts, St. Johnsbury or by calling 802-748-2600 ext. 2.  24-hour online sales are available at www.CatamountArts.org

LeAnn Rimes skyrocketed to stardom at the age of 13, becoming the youngest country music star since Tanya Tucker (in 1972).  Her debut album, Blue, reached # 1 on the Top Country Albums chart and the album’s lead single of the same name (originally intended to be recorded by Patsy Cline in the early 60’s) became a Top Ten hit.  Rimes became an immediate national sensation, with many declaring that her spectacular voice made her the finest female country vocalist since Cline. 

LeAnn Rimes has released ten studio albums and placed more than 40 singles on the international charts.  She has sold more than 37 million records worldwide.  She has won nearly every major country music award, including two Grammys, twelve Billboard Awards, and three Academy of Country Music awards.  She is also the youngest person to ever win a Country Music Association award. 

Fans will be treated to a rare opportunity to hear LeAnn Rimes astonishing voice in the intimate environment of Fuller Hall, accompanied only by guitar, pedal steel, percussion, and bass.  Or as the Grand Rapids Press described her singular talent,

“a throaty, rich instrument of storytelling and emotion, a deluxe brocade of texture and shine.”

Proceeds to benefit Kingdom County Productions’ performing arts program for community programs and schools.

“Rimes showed she still loves what she does, and does it incredibly well.  She hit notes for the angels.”  -- Washington Post

“LeAnn Rimes acoustic concert was more than pleasant.  It was awesome. Without having to compete with the heavy amplification of country rock as she's done for the past 15 years, Rimes hit all the right notes.”  -- Columbus Dispatch

“Terrific.” – New York Times

“Her performance was a potent, concise reminder of just how deeply a sound can seep into someone's soul.” – Dallas Morning News

Chris Cagle Live in Concert

CHRIS CAGLE
8pm on June 4th,  August 5th, 2011
Caledonia County Fairgrounds
Lyndonville, Vermont

Proceeds benefiting Lyndon Institute

$35 General Admission on the Track (Standing) in front of the stage
$30 General Admission in the Grandstands (Covered)

Tickets go on sale Friday, March 25th at 10:00am here.

Sponsored by NSN and Kix 105.5: Today's Hot New Country


If Chris Cagle were nothing more than a man who lives life at full-speed, taking corners on two wheels, he would still be one of country music's more interesting characters. There aren't many in the industry who can put passion and energy on stage or on record the way he can. But a man doesn't go gold with his first two albums and produce seven hits--including four Top Tens--on nothing more than bravado. Chris's secret weapon lies in his ability to rope the whirlwind, to capture its motion and emotion with his pen and his voice. It is, as Wordsworth said, where emotion is recalled in tranquility that poetry is created, and it is there that Chris's untamed spirit becomes art.


The two sides of Cagle's compelling psyche come together beautifully on his third album, Anywhere But Here, a collection that crystallizes the promise of the first two and takes him another big step forward. Its first single, "Miss Me Baby," is four minutes of raw drama sung with a nuanced intensity that announces Chris's growing maturity as a vocalist. It also represents the eighth time he has hit the Top 40 with a song he has written or co-written.


The album captures a renewed Chris, back from vocal rest and a period of intense introspection, reflecting on the complex emotions to be found in living a modern life in the spotlight. He knew early in the recording process that he and co-producer Rob Wright had found something special.


"I had gone back to the studio where I did my first album," he says. "Same musicians, same engineer, everything. We were doing 'Miss Me Baby' and I thought, 'Oh, my gosh, we really do have something.' It was like the first time I heard 'Laredo' after we mixed it and I thought, 'I've got a shot.'"


Chris is convinced that his long period of enforced vocal rest--something his restless spirit found nearly intolerable at the time--have left him in a better place vocally.

"The one thing that has changed with this record over the last two," he says, "is the dynamic of the vocal. I'm not just singing hard at everything. I've been learning, listening to people like Conway Twitty, and there were times recording things when I'd think, 'Yeah, that's natural. That's what you want.'"

That new sense of control comes through in songs like "Maria," a sultry and powerful look at passionate love, "I Was Made For You" and "You Still Do That To Me," songs that celebrate lasting love, and "Anywhere But Here," where every note catalogs the lyric's pain.

On the rowdier side, there is "Hey Y'all," a flat-out rocker about the joys of outdoor partying, "Might Wanna Think About It," which finds the tough-minded Texan staking out his territory in the modern-day battles over rights and obligations, and "Wanted Dead Or Alive," a fresh reading of the '80s-era Bon Jovi classic. There is also "Wal-Mart Parking Lot," a quintessential small-town tale of coming of age at this generation's equivalent of the town square. The song helps anchor an album's worth of real life sung by one of the country artists most able to turn reality into memorable music.

"I've got a lot of high hopes for this record," he says. "I tried to make music that was better without necessarily making it different because I love the music that I've made in the past."


LINKS
CMT When he Bumped Taylor Swift from #1:
Country by the Grace of God
My Love Goes On and On

Harlem Superstars Comedy Basketball Fundraiser

Academy Sophomores Presenting

Harlem Superstars Comedy Basketball

                The Harlem Superstars comedy basketball team will face St. Johnsbury Academy’s “Dream Team” Thursday, March 24 at 6:30 p.m. at Alumni Memorial Gymnasium.

            Sponsored by the school’s sophomore class as a fundraiser for class activities and projects, the game will feature an abundance of player-fan interaction, including autograph sessions, dancing, and a halftime show where child spectators will compete for a chance to win a prize.

            Dream Team members include a mix of teachers and Hilltopper boys basketball players, Sophomore Class Dean Gerry Prevost said.

            Advance sale tickets are available for $7 at the Catamount Arts Center, on Eastern Ave. in St. Johnsbury and at the door the night of the event.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Date:               March 14, 2011
Contact:         Joe Healy, Director of Marketing & Communications
                        St. Johnsbury Academy
                        1000 Main Street
                        St. Johnsbury, Vermont 05819
                        802-748-8171
                        Email: jhealy@stjacademy.org
                        Web: www.stjohnsburyacademy.org

Country Singer Elizabeth Cook Live at the St. Johnsbury School Auditorium

Reprinted from the Kingdom County Productions email. Elizabeth Cook Indie Country Music Star and Grand Ole Opry Regular Read the Time Argus Article on Elizabeth! Often compared to Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton, and Emmylou Harris, Elizabeth Cook is a sharp observer and country music rebel who is maybe best understood in her own words, spoken after the release of her latest album, Welder "I'm not a welder, at least not in the typical sense of the trade.  But my daddy is, by way of 2300 hours of training that certified him, courtesy of the Atlanta Federal penitentiary.  I myself couldn't put a rod in the thingamajig.  But I do tend to fuse things, confuse things, sometimes with sparks, sometime like a lava melt, sometimes back by a tank of compressed air ready to blow, sometimes quiet as a slow leak." "Don't look at it directly...it'll burn your eyes" mama used to yell.  I stood bare-footed hanging on the inside of the screen door of our Florida patio.  I love watching the electron-beam of our family business, Cook's Welding, at work in our tiny dirt yard.  It was so hard not to look.  Couldn't help but look.  And the rawness of my new album Welder is case and point.  Apparently, I still can't help but look.  It's my damnation and my salvation.  And it's my job.  I have to look" The Bob Amos Band From 1988-2003 Bob Amos was the lead vocalist, guitarist, songwriter and front man for acclaimed Sugar Hill recording artists Front Range, one of the top contemporary bluegrass bands in the USA and Europe. Over their fifteen year history Front Range recorded seven CDs, received constant airplay on acoustic- oriented radio stations, and performed at concert venues and music festivals in 42 states, 12 countries and on 3 continents. In 2000, Singout! Magazine reviewer John Lupton called Bob "one of the most consistently interesting and intelligent songwriters in American music." Currently, Bob leads the Vermont based Bob Amos Band, an acoustic music and harmony vocal tour de force featuring Bob on guitar and vocals, his son Nathan on bass and vocals, daughter Sarah on percussion and vocals, and mandolinist Gary Darling. The band's repertoire consists of a wide variety of songs penned by Amos, with stylistic influences ranging from bluegrass, folk, country and celtic, to blues and rock-a-billy. Event Info St. Johnsbury School St. Johnsbury, VT 05819 March 18th, 2011 7:30 PM

TICKETS Reserved seats: $28, $24 KCP and CA members: $26, $22 Students: $16 Tickets can be purchased online or at the Catamount Arts box office Online order Box Office: 802-748-2600

Catamount Gallery Group Show in March

March is a very special time in the Gallery at Catamount Arts because it is the month that Catamount’s own Gallery Group takes the central spotlight. A special reception honoring Catamount’s Gallery Group will be held from 5 pm – 7 pm Friday, March 11. The reception is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served.

 

 More than 50 works of art in a variety of mediums will be featured in this annual exhibition by Northeast Kingdom artists who have exhibited at Catamount in the past and are returning to highlight their latest work. The exhibit also includes several new artists who have not exhibited in the Gallery before, including Edward Kadunc and Bill Peabody. Featured artists, who each have one or two pieces of work on view, include Emiko Sawaragi Gilbert, Claire Van Vliet, Ann Young, Jerry Ralya, Rosie Prevost and Bob Manning among others. The exhibit was organized and curated by Manning, a local artist and art historian who is also on Catamount’s Board of Directors. The exhibit will be on view for the entire month of March.