GREENFIELD — Four former students of Artspace Community Arts Center are showcasing their work at Hope & Olive through April and May.

Residents are invited to meet the Mill Street Artists and learn more about their work during an opening reception at the restaurant on Sunday, April 6, at 4 p.m.

Each member of Mill Street Artists has their own interests, so there is no particular theme to the show, but the works will primarily be pastels, as the group originally formed through a pastels class at Artspace. When the class ended, four of the artists — Cliff Carlson, Carolyn Gross, Liza O’Neil and Shannon Shreve — wished to stay in touch and formed their own monthly critique group.

“We started as a pastel class at Artspace and evolved from there,” Carlson said. “We started meeting by ourselves as a group. We’d become friends and we trusted each other. … We take turns showing our work and it’s been really valuable for us to receive advice and critiques.”

Becky Clark, an instructor with Artspace and the curator of the show, has been working with the group for more than a decade. She taught the class at Artspace and said she is proud of how the artists have grown over the years.

“I love this class because these are people who were doing other things with their lives and just felt a calling to create their own work,” Clark said. “It’s admirable for them to come to this from all disciplines of other works.”

Clark highlighted how the group members are trying to branch out into different art styles, such as the abstract.

“The work is all slightly different, and the nice thing about the critique group is we all know what we’re trying to do and we support that,” Clark said. “We’re happy to see their growth and because we know what their work is like, our comments are very helpful and positive. It’s a great group.”

Members of the group have previously showcased their work at other exhibits, both individually and collectively, but the show at Hope & Olive will be the group’s first display outside of a gallery space.

Reach Madison Schofield at 413-930-4579 or mschofield@recorder.com. Chris Larabee contributed to this report.