A new call to craft artists comes from the unlikely collaboration of the Shelburne Craft School, a nonprofit that teaches traditional art and craft skills, and April Cornell, a Burlington-based clothing designer.

On July 16, the two will host Art on the Water, an outdoor fine arts and crafts event in the parking lot behind April Cornell's retail outlet on Battery Street. It will feature up to 15 juried vendors, live music, art activities and food courtesy of the ArtsRiot food truck.

When artist and activist Grace Spring was in her fifties, she began a one-woman protest vigil: Every Friday for more than 20 years, she would show up in front of the Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C., bearing a "Free Tibet" sign. Today Spring, now 84,  is the subject of a pop-up retrospective organized by her daughter, Monkton resident Cassandra Corcoran.

For this weekend only, Bristol's WalkOver Gallery is featuring a selection of Spring's artworks, from life-size, hand-painted papier-mâché sculptures to portraits of Tibetans on cotton scroll, to black-and-white photographs of tabletop clay sculptures of mythical beasts and ample allegorical suggestions.
Spring's works are warm and gentle, woven inextricably with artifacts from her longtime engagement with Tibet. These include an album of thank-you notes and drawings from Tibetan children that the artist received in 1989, snapshots of her travels in the region, and "Free Tibet" stickers.

Three of Spring's  human figures appear to be congregating happily by the gallery's window, beneath a colorful Tibetan prayer flag. At one point early Saturday evening, guests huddled around a laptop that was playing video from a visit the Dalai Lama paid to the U.S.  — across the room from Spring's rendering of His Holiness as a puppet.

One signature of her mother's life, writes Corcoran, was her "quest for inner peace and the cultivation of her spiritual life." Before Spring "found the Tibetan Buddhist path" in the ’80s, she was a follower of Indian spiritual guide Kirpal Singh, as well as the mystic Gurdjieff.

Spring's preoccupation with spirituality — grace, if you will — emanates strongly from her body of work. Angels appear in multiple forms, from a sculpture of a youthful, almost sly, kneeling angel to a 1992 sketch of a more traditional European angel.

Even works without direct religious references, such as a sculpture of a young boy, embody archetypal, existentially loaded positions. The boy, for example, kneels and examines his upturned palms, suggesting the contemplation of his own human form, as well as the stance of the beggar and the repentant sinner.

One of Spring's most striking sculptures is of herself. It is listed as "Painted  paper mache sculpture of woman standing with mirror: "I am You and You are Me — There Is No Separation." The figure is a young woman holding a mirror outstretched in her right hand. As if enacting a mudra, her left hand is extended with the palm up. The "mirror" she holds has no glass; the barrier has been removed, or was never there.

Affecting in its intimacy, this show celebrates the slow, soft and unwavering contemplation of finding one's place,  not only in relation to others but to oneself, to the cosmos and to the here and now.

On Monday, Burlington City Arts announced the newest additions to its administrative team, art director Andrew DesForges and communication director Andrew Krebbs.

Krebbs fills the position left by the departure of communication director Llu Mulvaney-Stanak in March this year. Mulvaney-Stanak held the post for just 10 months before leaving to become the interim executive director of Outright Vermont; longtime director Eric Ford left it in 2016 for a position as senior manager of local programming at Vermont PBS.

BCA's previous art director was Ted Olson, who worked at the organization from 2010 to 2015. He left BCA in 2015 to start his own branding firm, Tally Ho Design, but continued to freelance for BCA, as did Bobby Hackney Jr.

DesForges, 32, is originally from Killington. He spent 10 years away in cities across the country, earning his MFA from the University of Iowa. DesForges returned to Vermont last year to be closer to his family. He has been working as a designer for A&S Brewing, as well as on freelance projects. Local music lovers will have seen DesForges' work on posters for the band Madaila.

Krebbs, 35, is originally from Indiana but spent the last 12 years in Birmingham, Ala. There he was the marketing director for the 67.5-acre Birmingham Botanical Gardens, a popular tourist destination. Krebbs moved to Vermont last November with his partner, Jason Garvey, who took a faculty position at the University of Vermont.

Part of his job, Krebbs said, is to make the BCA customer experience better. "We want to make it really easy to take classes, really easy for you to join or donate, to volunteer," he noted.

Krebbs added that he and his partner were drawn to Vermont because "the quality of life is just so amazing here. And BCA fits right into that."

For his part, DesForges said that his role is to visualize and convey to the public what the organization is all about. "A lot of people I talk to don't know all that BCA offers," he said. "We're either just a clay studio or a gallery [to them], but we have so much more going on."

Outside of work, DesForges said he enjoys skateboarding, snowboarding, the fine arts and live music. His most recent discovery was the local band Iron Eyes Cody.

Krebbs said he's excited for his first full summer in Vermont. He said he enjoys being outdoors and spending time with his three dogs.

Being one of two Andrews is confusing for both new hires, who sit right next to each other in BCA's third-floor offices. DesForges suggested Top Gun-themed nicknames: "Goose" for him and "Maverick" for Krebbs. Whether or not the names stick, it seems that BCA has found its wingmen.