Abstract expressionism, this year’s South End Art Hop theme, is all about movement and energy. Instead of planning a detailed composition, fearless painters of the 1950s would just grab a bucket of paint and start sloshing. Though many Burlington Art Hoppers may similarly launch themselves into the action this weekend, some of us need at least an outline to get the picture going. Here, then, are five artists whose work you can seek out this year. Some will open their studios; others are displaying their work at SEABA’s curated sites or vending at the SEABA Artist Market on Saturday. (For even more, check out the listings and map). It doesn’t matter where you start: With abstraction, every side is the upside.
Homegrown Hopper
Charlotte Dworshak, the Soda Plant, 266 Pine St., Suite 120, charlottedworshak.com, @charbroil_ on Instagram
Painter Charlotte Dworshak, 34, grew up with the South End Art Hop; the event launched only a year after she was born. Attending was a hallmark of Dworshak’s childhood. She was raised in the neighborhood and remembers going to Art Hop with her mom, esteemed local artist Katharine Montstream. Dworshak moved west for college but has since picked up a brush and returned to Vermont. This will be her fifth year hosting an open studio in the Soda Plant for the event, a space she and Montstream now share.
Dworshak is known for two-toned acrylic landscape paintings defined by a straight horizon. While these are a large part of her oeuvre, recent works include views of dense forests and flowers, as well as abstract interpretations of natural scenes. With a palette of purples, pinks, greens and blues, her paintings evoke a window onto a peaceful garden or a breathtaking dusk or dawn.
Dworshak said her work emerges from what she sees around her. Having recently replanted her own garden, she’s had botanicals on the brain even more than usual. “Especially in the summer here, it’s so easy to find inspiration wherever you go,” Dworshak said. “I was just up in South Hero, and it was hard not to feel inspired.”
For Art Hop weekend, she will hang between 100 and 200 7-by-6-inch paper paintings in her studio that visitors will be able to peel off the wall to purchase. She’ll also display larger works on canvas.
Dworshak wishes she had a clicker to count how many people she’ll talk to over that weekend; she estimates that she’s had as many as 500 in past years. All of those conversations feel like a reward for the preparation she puts in.
“Once Art Hop starts, you’re sort of done with the homework part,” she said. “Then it feels like you can just be here.”
Spin Me Right Round
Claude Lehman Pottery, 4 Howard St., claudelehmanpottery.com
After eight years in his South End studio, Claude Lehman, 61, is still enjoying every part of Art Hop, save the inherent anxiety of booze-fueled Burlingtonians in his pottery studio. Community is key to Lehman’s work, and he appreciates having a space where he can teach classes and interact with his artist neighbors. His studio holds completed pieces in the same room where he throws pottery, making his finished work a backdrop for his creative process.
A first-year pottery instructor at Sarah Lawrence College in New York taught Lehman about the rich traditions and history of Asian pottery, and he was hooked. His work was inspired by the earth-toned glazes and classic, functional shapes common to ceramics from Korea, China and Thailand. Lehman said he is also inspired by the work of renowned potter Bernard Leach, who trained in Japan before returning to England with fellow ceramicist Hamada Shōji. “The way their pottery is both based in tradition but very individualistic,” Lehman said, gives it a personal, human feel in addition to its inherent earthiness.
Lehman uses a high-fire technique, heating his kiln to a whopping 2,350 degrees Fahrenheit. He uses reduction techniques, controlling the amount of oxygen in the kiln to produce otherwise impossible colors and visual effects.
Lehman teaches at the Community College of Vermont as well as small groups — maximum seven students — in his studio, where he has eight pottery wheels. He says teaching furthers his personal craft practice. “Sometimes [students] come up with these wonderful combinations of glazes I wouldn’t have thought of,” he said. “It’s a great way to learn, and it’s also a great way to share your passion.”
Fungi-delic
Hazelbuds Clay at the SEABA Artist Market on Saturday, September 6, and at hazelbudsclay.com
Emma Riesner’s art grows from a love for the forest floor. From their home in the woods in Bristol, they sculpt thickets of hyperrealistic fungi- and bug-inspired jewelry and home décor.
“There’s nothing more beautiful than the cycle of life — rejoicing in the decay,” said Riesner, 32. The knowledge that every mushroom and tiny critter serves an ecological purpose motivates them.
When Riesner studied sculpture and ceramics in art school, they never expected jewelry to become their focus. One of their hobbies is forest foraging, and in 2022, they posted a photo to the Vermont Foragers Facebook group of a planter pot they had made with moss and fungal adornments.
“After sharing it, I immediately had people asking, ‘Are you making earrings out of those?’ I [was] like, Well, I guess I am,” Riesner said.
That led Riesner to start their business, Hazelbuds Clay, named after both the trees and their partner’s late grandmother, Hazel. Hazelbuds’ offerings have expanded from jewelry and ceramics to woodsy suncatchers, stickers, lighter cases and other products, which Riesner sells online and at art markets and fairs in Vermont, Maine, Connecticut and New York. This will be Riesner’s third year vending at Art Hop’s SEABA Artist Market.
Most of the clay and acrylic paints they use come from warehouses that sell secondhand or damaged art materials, or from “destash” Facebook groups where people unload extra crafting supplies. With affordable resources, the woods right outside their window and a supportive community, inspiration often finds Riesner.
“I also have a lot of people that send me mushroom pictures, which is always welcome and always beautiful,” Riesner said. “And if I’m curious, I look it up and I learn, because I’m a curious creature.”
Character Study
Liza Phillip, the Maltex Building, 431 Pine Street, lizasart.myportfolio.com
Liza Phillip’s portfolio of standout pieces is growing as rapidly as their résumé. The 30-year-old artist, who draws and paints genderless monsters, recently presented work in “Outstanding: Contemporary Self-Taught Art” at BCA Center, created a logo for nonprofit Winooski Strong and was commissioned to paint a mural at Burlington’s Sustainability Academy.
Phillip’s cartoonish characters date back to when they were an incessant doodler drawing all over their homework. They started to expand their practice into painting after a 2018 chance meeting in Vail, Colo. with their favorite artist, Lucas Beaufort.
Phillip said Beaufort told them about the Uni Posca brand paint markers he uses to create the signature crisp, clean, black outlines Phillip appreciates in his work. Beaufort also gave Phillip some valuable advice: “Make 50 pieces and just put them up somewhere.”
Phillip duly purchased the supplies they needed, then the pandemic hit. “One day I just had a full day just free to do nothing,” Phillip said, “and started drawing.” As businesses reopened, Phillip’s sister convinced them to place their work at a local shop. They sold every canvas they had.
Phillip’s work is populated by noodley-armed, eccentric, soulful characters. Solid colors are so smooth as to look printed, thanks to the layers upon layers of patiently applied paint. Written phrases such as “You are not alone” and “Trans is divine!” allow the characters to speak directly to viewers. “They see a phrase; they see an affirmation that really hits home with them,” Phillip said. “They’re like, Okay, I see myself in this piece.”
HiGH-Tech History
Singularities Collection at the SEABA Artist Market on Saturday, September 6, and at
singularitiescollection.com
Terence Rallo’s jewelry and decorative pieces have a hidden history. Many of the objects in his Singularities Collection, which he’ll be vending at the SEABA Artist Market, resemble the sort of traditionally carved architectural details you might find on the end of a church pew or a fancy front door.
But Rallo, 41, of St. Albans, actually designs his patterns — many of which feature organic forms but are all inspired by math — using computer rendering software. He carves the designs on a 3D desktop mill, which is like a 3D printer but for wood. He’s recently been combining those forms with cast silver, concrete and semiprecious gemstones.
Rallo is originally from Alaska and moved to the East Coast to be closer to his daughter. He said he took a couple of casting and stone-setting classes in Baltimore but has no formal art training. In 2022, he and his family moved to Vermont to help friends with their new brewery, Kraemer & Kin. In between the business closing at the end of last year and reopening in a new location this spring, Rallo moved and started working full time on his jewelry practice.
Since then, Rallo said, he’s been on “a quest” to salvage barnwood — specifically, very old hardwood structural timbers. Once he finds them, he strips away any degraded material, puts the wood in a vacuum to suck out all the air and cures it with resin so that it’s humidity-resistant before carving.
Some of the beams Rallo uses are hundreds of years old. He’s got hickory from Enosburg Falls and ash from what he thinks was one of the first farmhouses in North Hero. He said he would soon pick up wood from South Hero that predates the 1800s.
“That’s incredibly interesting, being able to revive and repurpose what’s been sitting around for several hundred years,” he said. “It’s tied to Vermont.”
This article appears in Art Hop Guide 2025.
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