BRATTLEBORO — Stephen Procter Studios hosts an open house and holiday sale Friday and Saturday, Nov. 24 and 25, at The Cotton Mill, 76 Cotton Mill Hill. The studio will be open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. both days. Artists Beth Armour and Bruce Campbell will show their sculptural work alongside Procter's ceramic vessels.
Procter is best known for his human-scale clay vessels. "The bare clay he favors evokes antiquity and the earthiness of stone," reports a news release. "His signature scale is monumental, and his pieces are found in gardens and landscapes across the Northeast." Alongside those he will be showing smaller pieces - both for the garden and for the home, and for holiday gift-giving.
Campbell's small wire sculptures are "whimsical and ingenious three-dimensional line drawings," say organizers. His animals and insects often incorporate simple levers to activate legs, wings, and tails. Alongside his wire animals he will be offering kinetic sculptures that explore planets and stars - and how the universe might work if moved by similar gears and levers.
Armour's tabletop sculptures reflect her interest in Japanese aesthetics. Armour says she started her artistic career as a popular maker of tableware, and after a hiatus of many years she has returned to clay "with a sculptor's eye." The mottled and satin surfaces she achieves with smoke firing and hand-burnishing "suggest the quality and resonant beauty of age-old patina, and they create a seamless union of surface and form."
The artists invite everyone to come enjoy the show, conversation with the artists, and holiday cheer and snacks. For more information, email [email protected], call or text 802-490-4983.
This Special section item was submitted to The Commons.