When the barn door of the Vermont Woodworking School opens, the smell of sawdust sweeps like a wave. Inside is a neat mix of machines, books and dust. Carina Driscoll, the school’s cofounder and executive director, is as no-nonsense as she is knowledgeable, explaining the founding of the school, its recent relocation from Colchester to Fairfax and the woodworking programs, which offer total-immersion instruction toward associate’s and master’s degrees in fine-furniture making.... Read more

In one of Valerie Hird’s large, untitled drawings, five women inhabit the paper like uneasy roommates. Each woman’s gaze guides the viewer’s eye through the picture. Each individual refers to the others while remaining distinct. This sense of separate yet shared experience permeates Hird’s exhibition of “The Maiden Voyages Project” at the Flynn Center’s Amy E.... Read more

In Neal Rantoul’s photographs, corduroy hills of tawny wheat slink into the horizon, all curving texture under the western sky. This landscape is Rantoul’s muse. The accomplished and meticulous photographer has returned time and time again to this farmland near rural Pullman, Wash., since it first beguiled him in 1993.... Read more

Loraleh Harris is a petite, energetic woman with the kind of charisma politicians would envy. On a recent evening she’s standing in front of an abstract painting in the gallery she has opened in downtown Winooski. The Block Gallery is a brand new enterprise, located beside McKee’s Pub & Grill on East Allen Street at the “top” of the roundabout.... Read more

The BigTown Gallery’s current exhibition, “On the Landscape: A Feminine Eye,” features five commanding artists who share a subject and a gender. Rather than drawing these works together under a feminist rubric, however, gallery owner and curator Anni Mackay selected them for their quality. On view are works by mature, internationally known contemporary artists who happen to be women.... Read more