The Sticks and Stones art exhibit is taking place at Fiddleheads Gallery in Northfield until Nov. 6.
Local artists submitted their work, using sticks and stones as their inspiration. There are photographs, jewelry, paintings, printmaking and artworks in multiple other mediums.
The gallery is open Friday through Saturday from noon until 5 p.m., and Sunday from noon until 4 p.m.
Vimala Steadman, an artist from Winchester, New Hampshire, and also a member of the Deerfield Valley Arts Association (DVAA), had the idea of a sticks and stones exhibit.
Her inspiration for sticks came from two courses that she took at Snowfarms and River Arts, where Steadman created stick structures.
Steadman loves stones, which was the reason for her move to Winchester. Before she moved to Winchester however, she lived in Michigan for four years. She used to love going to the beach and beachcombing. While at the beach, she would collect washed-up crinoid fossils and rocks with holes in them to create jewelry.
For the Sticks and Stones exhibit, Steadman has created necklaces with stone pendants from Lake Michigan, and a spirit house in memory of her neighbor who recently passed away. She said her neighbor used to smoke cigarettes and therefore she chose to create a cigar bar in the spirit house.
“Creating this house felt like a great way to remember him by,” Steadman said.
Though she doesn’t consider herself “earthy crunchy,” Steadman said she’s “passionate about nature and sticks and stones.”
Jeanne Sisson is a mixed-media textile artist from Northfield, MA, and a DVAA member. Sisson created a landscape work by using sticks from her yard.
Sisson collected the sticks and flattened them in between books and preserved them with an acrylic medium. She then wrapped the sticks with thread fibers and chose fabrics that she hand dyed and hand-printed. She then stretched the fabric out onto a canvas and hand stitched the sticks onto the canvas to create the landscape.
Sisson said it took her a week and a half to create three of these art pieces.
“I didn’t think I was going to do any work for this show,” said Sisson. “I had a hard time resonating with anything until I started thinking about wrapping sticks, which is kind of like a meditation. So is stitching. And I think that’s why I like the combination of paint and fabric and then hand stitch because it’s solid meditation, there’s a lot of repetitive motion in it with the stitching and wrapping sticks.”
Sisson said she has traveled and taken workshops from people who specialize in the arts and that the inspiration for these landscapes came from a workshop she did in England with a woman who does three-dimensional sculptures with sticks and wrapping them. During the workshop, Sisson said she would glue or stitch samples in her sketchbook. So when Sisson heard about this exhibit, she “remembered that workshop and started flipping through the journal.”
Sisson explained how she has been a mixed-media textile artist for over 20 years. She has been a painter since she was a kid, and was studied art at Westfield State University.
Jeanne Sisson’s artwork can be found on her website at https://www.jeannesisson.com.
Another artist presenting her work at Sticks and Stones is Mary Mosley, a multimedia artist from Ashfield, and a DVAA member.
For this exhibit, Mosley thought there were “a lot of possibilities with Sticks and Stones” because her art gallery is in the woods. She has presented collage work, block printing and location art with sculptural pieces.
Mosley said the view from her studio inspired her location piece.
“I spent the night (at the studio) and there I was up at five in the morning when the sun was coming up, and it was coming through the trees, and it was early spring. I was enraptured by the way the light was hitting the ground and hitting various branches and stuff.”
Another piece Mosley has presented is a block-printed canvas with the phrase “sticks and stones will break my bones.”
Mosley said she came from a family of artists, with six generations of artists in the family.
She said her great-grandmother, grandmother and mother were painter, “So there was always the smell of turpentine in the house.”
Mosley has two sisters. One is a potter and the other is a landscape painter. She mentioned the joys of having joint shows with her sisters when they get the opportunity.
Mosley said one of her main interests is abstract art. At nine years old, she was inspired by John Douglas, an artist based in Burlington, Vermont, who created a panel over a fireplace that he block printed and glazed so it “became this beautiful abstract piece that you could just look at and find anything in … He just really inspired me,” said Mosley.
“I appreciate my artistic side. I appreciate it as part of myself and part of the way I walk through the world,” she added.
When asked about her favorite thing to paint, Mosley said, “It could be an inspiration in the moment.”
A sticks and stones-themed raffle is also being held at the gallery with raffle items including stick pens, glow sticks, gemstone necklaces, a $10 gift certificate donated by Richardson’s Candy Kitchen and books for children. There are also baskets people can win that contain beer donated by Stoneface and snacks, or wine from Cameron’s Winery. The drawing will be held on Sunday, Nov. 6, at 1 p.m. $10 buys 11 raffle tickets.
An earlier version of this article provided an incorrect date for when the raffle drawing will be held. The drawing will be held on Sunday, Nov. 6, at 1 p.m. Richardson’s Candy Kitchen also donated a $10 gift certificate.