The 2025 Small Stones Festival
Welcome to the 2025 Small Stones Festival of the Arts. We are happy to announce that the 2025 Festival will take place from January 25 through February 2, 2025. In January of 2024, with the support of the Community Harvest Project,we successfully moved the home for the Festival to the Brigham Hill Community Barn in North Grafton, Massachusetts. We’re pleased to say that the number of folks visiting the Festival exhibition, art sales, contributions at the door, and visitor feedback were all extremely positive. The Barn, even in winter, is a lovely, open locale for enjoying art. Parking is plentiful and the heating system is more that adequate to keep up with the winter weather!With the support of area artists and the Blackstone Valley community we look forward to an even more successful Festival in 2025. Artists please take note of the link below to our separate Art Call web site. The art call will be open for submissions from September 15 through October 15, 2024. Arts lovers, take note of the schedule below. All are invited and the price is right for admission to the Festival…..$00.00.
This year we once again have the honor of collaborating with a distinguished panel of jurors. Jurying our fine art painting submissions will be Carol Arnold, Scott Nelson, and Claudia Fiks. Our fine art photography submissions will be juror by Frances Jakubek, Olivia Stone, and Steven Duede. These experienced painters, photographers, curators and educators will work together to choose those submissions to the art call that will be exhibited at our in person exhibition in January 2025 and choose those art works that will be awarded prizes. You can read more about each juror below.
The Exhibition
The highlight of our Festival is a juried exhibition of fine art painting and fine art photography, bringing together many of the most talented artists in our region. For this year’s festival, 182 artists submitted a total of 544 artworks, from which 144 artworks representing 88 artists were selected by our jurors for the exhibition. All submissions, however, are displayed on our web gallery, which you can view following the link below. We encourage interested fine art painters and fine art photographers to consider submitting their work to future years’ festivals; learn more by visiting the Art Call link in the menu.
This year’s exhibition will once again take place at the Brigham Hill Community Barn, headquarters of nonprofit farm Community Harvest Project. We transformed their beautiful Great Room into an art gallery, making for an inspirational venue for our artists and visitors. There is ample parking and just as importantly, warmth! (It’s a finished barn.)
Exhibition Schedule
Saturday, January 25: The Opening of the Exhibition – Noon – 5:00 pm
Saturday, January 25: Awards Ceremony 2 PM, Artist Talks, 2:30 PM
Sunday, January 26: Exhibition open, Noon – 4:00 PM
Tuesday, January 28: Exhibition open, Noon – 9:00 PM
Tuesday, January 28: John Gaston, Photographer, Presented by the Worcester County camera Club, 7:00 PM
Wednesday, January 29: Exhibition open, Noon – 4:00 PM
Thursday, January 30: Exhibition open, Noon – 4:00 PM
Friday, January 31: Exhibition open, Noon – 6:00 PM
Saturday, February 1: Exhibition open, Noon – 6:00 pm
Sunday, February 2: Exhibition open, 12:00 pm – 4:00 pm – This is the final day of the Exhibition for 2025
Sunday, February 2: Juror Talks, 2:00 pm
(For Artists: Art pick-up Schedule)
Last Year’s Awards Ceremony
Our 2025 Jurors
2025 Fine Art Photography Jurors
Frances Jakubek
Frances Jakubek is an image-maker, independent curator, and consultant for artists. She is the co-founder of A Yellow Rose Project, past Director of the Bruce Silverstein Gallery in New York City, and past Associate Curator of the Griffin Museum of Photography in Massachusetts. Her recent curatorial appointments include Critical Mass, Potential Space: A Serious Look at Child’s Play featuring works by Nancy Richards Farese, Filter Photo, The Griffin Museum of Photography, British Journal of Photography, Les Rencontres d’Arles, Save Art Space, and Photo District News. Jakubek has been a panelist for the Massachusetts Cultural Council’s Photography fellowships, speaker for SPE National and Colorado Photographic Arts Center, and lecturer for the School of Visual Arts, Boston University, University of New Mexico, and Washington and Lee University. She has taught workshops for The Southeast Center for Photography, The Center for Fine Art Photography, Maine Media, and the University of Iowa. Jakubek’s photographs explore the boundaries of private and personal space and the emotions that bind them. Private Publicity looks at images paired with text that investigate the demanding language of our social outlets. The Sensual Subway embraces the New York City transit system and all it has to offer in its intimacy and delusion. Archive of the Ego is an ongoing series of self-portraits that have evolved and changed over the past 20 years.
https://www.francesjakubek.com
Olivia Stone
Olivia J. Stone joined the Worcester Art Museum as Curatorial Assistant in 2018, and became Assistant Curator of Prints, Drawings and Photography in 2023. She received her MA in the History of Art and Architecture from Boston University in 2015 and holds a BA in French and Studio Art from the University of Virginia. Her research interests center on the long nineteenth century in Europe but broaden to include print and photographic output across cultures. Currently, she is developing an exhibition on prints that engage with the weather and emergent field of meteorology during the Scientific Revolution and Enlightenment. Formerly the Assistant Editor at Art New England magazine, Olivia’s writing on art has also appeared in Big, Red & Shiny, the Boston Art Review, The Rib, and other publications. She regularly contributes catalogue essays to the Art Center Gallery at Anna Maria College in Paxton, MA. Photo credit: Steve Briggs.
https://annamaria.edu/olivia-stone/
Steven Duede
With a work history in museums, non-profits, art organizations and academic settings Steven Duede carries his attachment to the creative process to all aspects of artist work. Currently he is a Board member of the Photographic Resource Center (PRC) in Boston, participating in programming and development. Steven has served on the board of directors at the Griffin Museum of Photography and the Cambridge Art Association. His work in Fine Art Photography has been recognized and supported as a fellowship finalist by the Massachusetts Cultural Council. He founded and works as principal organizer of Aspect Initiative, an online gallery showcasing Fine Art Photography. Steven has been a reviewer in the New England Portfolio reviews sponsored by the Griffin Museum of Photography and the PRC. RISD portfolio reviews, United Photo Industries The FENCE. Palm Springs Portfolio reviews and Critical Mass with Photolucida. His work is exhibited regularly in the Boston area, New England, and across the nation. His works are in the holdings or on loan with the Danforth Art Museum at Framingham State University, the deCordova Museum/Art Loan Program, Boston Properties and Harvard University.
2025 Fine Art Painting Jurors
Carol Arnold
After graduating from Vesper George School of art in Boston, Carol Arnold spent several years working in the commercial art field before turning her attention fully to fine art painting. Carol joined the Putney Painters group in 2006. At Richard Schmid and Nancy Guzik’s request, she is now leading the Putney Painters group. Her recent awards iincluded (2022) Third Place Award in the Plein Air Division at the Rocky Mountain High, Wet Paint Competition during the OPA National Convention and (2020) First Place, for best Figure/Portrait in the June Plein Air Salon Art Competition. That year she also received First Place in the Mark Twain Library Show. This is Carol’s second time servine as a juror in the Small Stones Festival.
https://www.carolarnoldfineart.com
Scott Nelson
Scott Nelson is a freelance artist, author, illustrator and cartoonist. His clients include Hallmark Cards, American Greetings, GoldenBooks for Children/Random House, NHL properties, and more. He has done freelance assignments for over thirty nationally recognized greeting card publishers and has worked for numerous notable children’s book companies. In 2006 he won the prestigious Mom’s Choice Award for his book entitled Mulch the LawnMower published by KRBY Creations. He has been an instructer in Drawing, Watercolor, Mixed Media and Children’s Book Illustration/Writing classes at the Worcester Art Museum since 2006. After studying under famed Rockport Art Association watercolorist Alex Gazonas, Scott has continued Alex’s tradition of encouraging all his students to market and sell their own work. “Alex pushed me to open my downtown Worcester studio at age 19 so I continue the tradition of nudging artists to challenge themselves regardless their age.” Scott can be found these days in his Millbury, MA studio either teaching at the Worcester Art Museum, rendering various freelance commissions or painting local scenes in watercolors, pen and ink, oil and acrylic in his expressionistic style.
https://bvaa.org/galleries/gallery-scott-nelson/
Claudia Fiks
Claudia is an art administrator with over two decades of dedication to the arts and culture sector. She is the founder and director of the New England Art Center, a newly established membership organization featuring The Art Gallery (TAG), and serves as the Director of Galatea Fine Art in Boston. Claudia is the director at Newton Open Studios, contributes as a writer and correspondent for Artscope Magazine, and leads guided tours at prestigious art fairs such as Art Basel and Art Miami Basel. As an independent consultant, she provides expertise to various art organizations and artists, helping to shape their programs and initiatives. Her extensive career includes notable positions such as Program Director and Development Director at esteemed institutions like the Eliot School for Fine and Applied Arts, Fuller Craft Museum, and the Society of Arts and Crafts. Beyond her administrative duties, Claudia serves as a grant panelist for the Mass Cultural Council.
2022 Juror Talks
Each year we ask several of our jurors to talk about how they went about the difficult work of deciding which images should be exhibited in person. Their comments will offer some insight as to how these two jurors made their decisions.
Financial Sponsors
We gratefully acknowledge the support of the following organizations for the Small Stones Festival of the Arts for 2025
Gaston Art and Frame
Gaudett Insurance
Homefield Credit Union
New England School of Fine Arts
Pepperoni Express
UniBank
2024 Organizing Committee
Jennifer Behymer – Fine Art Painting
Sue Cardosi – Worcester County Camera Club
Ken Crater – Grafton Arts and Worcester County Camera Club
Bonnie Frederico – Fine Art Painter, Owner of www.Sellarshop.com
Carol Frieswick – Artist/Juror Liaison – Blackstone Valley Art Association
Bob Hassinger – Worcester County Camera Club
James Hunt – Fine Art and Environmental Photography
Carolyn Kinlock-Winkler – Fine Art Painting
Maggie Lavallee – Worcester County Camera Club
Roberta Oakley – Worcester County Camera Club
Dana Wilson – Public Relations and Marketing – Worcester County Camera Club
Sponsoring Organizations
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