Classes to explore the wonder of Robert Frost's Vermont home - Bennington Banner

SHAFTSBURY — Artists Renée Bouchard and Genevieve Plunkett will be conducting six classes in image and text landscape study in and around Robert Frost's Vermont home.

Beginning on May 12, participants will meet once a month to explore, record, and contemplate the beautiful and history-laden setting. You can register for all six (two-hour) classes, three classes, or just one.

Equipped with both visual and literary arts, the class will explore what it means to be an observer, and how best to capture a sense of place through memory, color interaction, composition, and text. How do the descriptive passages from our favorite works of literature inform our painting? How can visual cues reshape the way we use language? And what does the landscape itself have to say about it?

Both instructors will come prepared to share their favorite techniques, but be ready to get experimental, get out of doors, and get creative.

The class will meet on the second Thursday of the month from 6:30-8:30 p.m. (time may be adjusted later in the summer) at the Robert Frost Stone House Museum, at 121 Vermont Route 7a, Shaftsbury. The cost ranges from $75 for one class; $125 for three; and $200 for six. To register, visit robert-frost-stone-house-museum.square.site/ and click on workshops.

Please bring supplies to the first class, including a variety of your favorite materials; paint, canvas/paper/panel, brushes, pencils, pens, paper or laptop.

Renée Bouchard received her MFA in visual art from the Vermont College of Fine Arts in 2021. She also attended the Cleveland Institute of Art, and began her painting practice after graduating from the Maine College of Art in 1999. She lives in North Bennington. For more information, visit renee-bouchard.com.

Genevieve Plunkett is the author of Prepare Her: Stories (Catapult), and forthcoming novel, In the Lobby of the Dream Hotel (Catapult, 2023). A winner of an O. Henry Award, her writing can also be found in New England Review, The Southern Review, Literary Hub, Electric Literature, and elsewhere. She lives in Vermont with her two children. Her website is genevieveplunkett.com.