4 minute read
Featured
Richard Duckett
Advertisement
Worcester Magazine USA TODAY NETWORK
The first Small Stones Festival of the Arts was held as a juried exhibition of fine art and photography Nov. 9 through 11 in 2018 at the historic Great Hall at Apple Tree Arts, 1 Grafton Common, Grafton.
For the fourth edition of the festival, the dates are Oct. 15 to 24 in three scheduled locations — the Great Hall, the Grafton Public Library and the Congregational Church of Grafton. The fine art and photography exhibit will be accompanied with music and literary programs, juror and artist talks, and an art collection presentation.
Grafton, just seven miles south of Worcester, is a picture-perfect setting, but even with the pandemic ravaging in 2020 when the festival went online, the event has been a big hit and grown every year.
“It was a definite success. That’s what spurred us on each year try to add something,” said Bonnie Frederico, a Grafton artist, a member of the Blackstone Valley Art Association, and a member of the Small Stones Festival of the Arts organizing committee from the beginning.
Now in 2021, “It’s much bigger and better than ever,” Frederico said.
For 2021, programs are in-person again but require pre-registration and mask wearing. For more information, go to www.smallstonesfestival.org. There will also be a web gallery.
Apple Tree Arts (a nonprofit community school for the arts), the Worcester County Camera Club and the Blackstone Valley Art Association collaborated in 2018 to create the Small Stones Festival of Arts “to provide an opportunity for Central Massachusetts artists to exhibit their work and gain recognition.”
Those organizations have been joined by the Shakespeare Club of Grafton and the Claflin Hill Symphony Orchestra in putting on this year’s festival.
But it’s still the art that’s the most important component, said Dana Wilson, who has also been on the organizing committee since the event’s inception.
“The essence of the show is the same. The one thing is that we’ve enhanced it. It’s organically evolving,” Wilson said. “The real focus is the art. The whole reason the group is together is the art. We want to enhance the art. The art is really important to us.”
Actually, the number of fine arts and photography works at the exhibition has remained the same, as has the process, Wilson noted.
Each year the festival conducts a call to art, requesting artists and photographers to submit their artwork in two categories. Then a panel of six independent jurors (three each for fine art and photography) selects 144 submissions for the exhibit and awards cash prizes for first-, second- and third-place winners in the fine art and photography categories.
The mission of the Small Stones Festival of the Arts is to “elevate the practice and appreciation of fine art and photography in the Blackstone Valley and beyond.”
Artists from far and wide have submitted work, including from throughout Massachusetts as well as New Hampshire and Rhode Island. This year there about 440 entries, Frederico said.
The name of the festival was taken from the Nipmuc name of the original Native American settlement in Grafton, Hassanamesit — a place of small stones.
Frederico said that a former annual arts event that had ran for a time was still in the minds of some people when the Small Stones Art Festival was created about 10 years on.
“It had previously been at our Municipal Center. People wanted to get it going again,” she said of the former incarnation.
“I think our initial goal was just to reach out to the public and put on some kind of show and get the town of Grafton to respond and see what we were trying to bring alive again,” Frederico said.
This year the 144 artworks will again be on view in the historic Great Hall, beginning with the festival’s opening reception and announcement of the juror’s winners Oct. 15. “The Great Hall itself is so beautiful,” it’s worth attending for that reason in addition to seeing the great new art on view, she said.
In addition to cash prize winners, awards will include juror’s choice and a popular choice award for each category. Cash awards are $500 for first; $250 for second; and $100 for third place. A 2021 hardback exhibit catalog will be sold online in late November. Artwork will be available for purchase.
Fine art category jurors are Carol Arnold, a Putney Painter group member and first-place prize winner in the best figure/portraiture category of the June 2020 Plein Air Salon Art Competition; Charlotte Wharton, a highly accomplished portrait, plein-air and genre artist whose work is displayed in national and European collections; and Susan Swinand, a prominent painter with preference for water media, who has taught at Worcester Art Museum, Clark University and Wellesley College Greenhouses.
The jurors for the photography category are David DeMelim, founder and
Bonnie Frederico, a Grafton artist and member of the Small Stones Festival of the Arts organizing committee.
PROVIDED PHOTO
