September 30th, 2017 2-4 PM

Meet me at the MAC and join me for Afternoon Tea and an Artist Talk.
Join Donna Walsh and the artists of Plein Air Northeast Kingdom for an Artist talk with panel discussion and Afternoon Tea. You will find the plein air artists to be quite a social bunch so even our talk will be a social event.

Free and open to the public at MAC Center for the Arts, 158 Main St. Newport VT 05855

Here is some info about the exhibit:

The MAC Center for the Arts and the Memphremagog Watershed Association will host an art exhibit featuring farms and waters of the Memphremagog Watershed. Resident artists and visiting artists at all levels are painting at many sites around the Northeast Kingdom through the NEK Plein Air painting group to document today’s landscapes that contribute to tomorrow’s history. Painting sites include views of local waters and views of soil and water conservation practices at four farms that are working with the Orleans County Conservation District.

This exciting art project includes highlighting strip cropping and grassed waterway in corn fields, grazing and laneways in pastures, and Riparian Forest buffers conservation practices that reduce soil erosion by water; increase infiltration and available soil water; and improve habitat, water quality, visual quality of the landscape and farm community relations.
Strip cropping is arranged on cropland across the general slope so that equal widths of grass strips are alternated with annually tilled cropped strip. Grassed waterways are generally planted to perennial grass in annual crop fields and are constructed to convey runoff from low spots where concentrated flow areas where ephemeral and gully erosion control is needed. Artists and community members will learn about these local field based conservation efforts and all the participating farmers will receive a framed print of one of the paintings.