Events
We sponsor a handful of events each semester related to our collections and temporary exhibitions.
UPCOMING EVENTS
Members Event: Artist Studio Visit
Jane Davies, Abstract Painter
Friday, April 3 | 10:00am
66 Main Street, Rupert, VT 05768
RSVP by Friday, March 27
Join the Friends of the Art Museum for the third in a series of four local artist studio visits available to members this winter and spring. This visit takes us to the Rupert, VT studio of abstract painter Jane Davies.
More information coming soon.
Sign up is on a first come, first served basis by either email or phone to Francisca Drexel: fdrexel@middlebury.edu or (802) 443-2369. A final list of participants will be shared with the group so that those wanting to carpool can make arrangements.
About the Artist
Jane Davies is a full-time painter. Beginning as a potter in the early nineties, Davies transitioned into freelance art, using painting and collage as her medium. Since 2010 she has been teaching abstract painting workshops in North America and online, as well as making art full time. She has written five instructional books, produced one instructional DVD, and offers many demonstration videos on social media.
Note: The Jane Davies studio visit and the Bonnie Baird studio visit (below) are intended as one morning/afternoon event. Your RSVP will register you for both visits.
Members Event: Artist Studio Visit
Bonnie Baird, Landscape Painter
Friday, April 3 | 2:00pm
65 West Road, North Chittenden, VT 05763
RSVP by Friday, March 27
Join the Friends of the Art Museum for the last in a series of four local artist studio visits available to members this winter and spring. This final visit takes us to the Rupert, VT studio of landscape painter Bonnie Baird.
More information coming soon.
Sign up is on a first come, first served basis by either email or phone to Francisca Drexel: fdrexel@middlebury.edu or (802) 443-2369. A final list of participants will be shared with the group so that those wanting to carpool can make arrangements.
About the Artist
Raised on a 730-acre dairy farm in Vermont, Bonnie Baird and her husband Robert are the third generations to own and work their dairy/maple farm. This outdoor experience has given her a deep connection with the land. Working in the natural environment every day in every kind of weather allows her to truly feel the horizon; warm or cold, dark or light, intimate or expansive. Baird’s paintings are filled with an emerging fullness of heart. In her paintings, light infuses life into atmosphere, becoming the magic that conjures a personal memory. Her paintings simultaneously evoke a simple lament and heartfelt joy. Using limited palette and large simple shapes, Baird composes more than a visual observation. Her work is a perceptual experience: an intrinsic, vivid memory.
Note: The Bonnie Baird studio visit and the Jane Davies studio visit (above) are intended as one morning/afternoon event. Your RSVP will register you for both visits.
Museum Lecture
“To All Art Lovers”: David Teniers and Theatrum Pictorium
Wednesday, April 8 | 4:30pm
Mahaney Arts Center, Room 125
Theatrum Pictorium, the first ever catalog of a significant paintings collection, is a profound art historical resource. Sabarsky Graduate Fellow Eloise McFarlane ’24.5, curator of “To All Art Lovers,” will talk about the development of the exhibition, which highlights this influential catalogue and invites conversation centered around the collection, preservation, and artistic interpretation of works.
Family Day at the Museum
Saturday, April 11, 2026 | 1:00–4:00pm
Mahaney Arts Center, Lower Lobby and Museum
FREE (registration is encouraged)
The Museum is excited to host art lovers of all ages for a FREE afternoon of sketching and art making activities for ages 5 & up, family art themed BINGO, and guided gallery drawing. Art activities in the MAC lobby will give you the opportunity to try your hand at creating objects inspired by the Museum’s collection. Friends of the Art Museum board members will be in the galleries and ready to chat about the collection. Light snacks and refreshments will be available in the lobby.
This is a free event, but please register so we know how many attendees to expect. Feel free to bring more family or friends on the day even if they have not been registered.
Museum Lecture
Come to Your Senses!—Sensiotics and Understandings of Arts and Culture in Africa and Beyond
Wednesday, April 15 | 4:30pm
Mahaney Arts Center, Room 125
This multimedia and multisensorial presentation is in the African and African Diaspora tradition of “call and response”—with images, sounds, film, and movement. With the audience, Professor Henry Drewal will consider Sensiotics, an approach that centers the crucial importance of the senses, our body-minds and sense-abilities, in our experiences with arts, cultures, and histories. While the focus of the talk is on the arts of Yorùbá-speaking people of West Africa, Drewal will argue that Sensiotics has global implications.
Speaker Bio
Henry John Drewal, Evjue-Bascom Professor Emeritus from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, taught African and African Diaspora arts histories, published widely, curated multiple exhibitions, performed, and made documentary films, the latest—Dancing Gods—released in 2025. His journey was inspired by his early experience as an apprentice under the master Yorùbá sculptor Ṣanusi, whose body knowledge and sense-abilities opened new pathways to learning and led to Drewal’s theory and method called Sensiotics. Drewal is the author of Gẹ̀lẹ̀dẹ́: Art and Female Power among the Yorùbá; Yorùbá: Nine Centuries of African Art and Thought; Beads, Body, and Soul: Art and Light in the Yorùbá Universe; Mami Wata: Arts for Water Spirits in Africa and its Diasporas; Introspectives: Contemporary Art by Americans and Brazilians of African Descent; and Striking Iron: the Art of African Blacksmiths. He is the recipient of numerous awards including Guggenheim, Fulbright, NEH, NEA, CASVA, Metropolitan Museum, Rockefeller, and Bard Fellowships.
Beyond the Canvas: A Theatrical Exploration of Damian Stamer’s Angels & Ghosts
Thursday, April 16 | 4:30pm
Middlebury College Museum of Art
Join Beyond the Page theatre artists Craig Maravich and Madison Middleton for an original theatrical experience inspired by the Museum’s current exhibit Damian Stamer: Angels & Ghosts. This immersive event blends storytelling, music, and audience conversation to explore themes of memory, art-making, and humanity in an increasingly technological world.
2026 Friends of the Art Museum Annual Brunch
Sunday, April 19, 2026 | 11:30am–1:30pm
Mahaney Arts Center, Lower Lobby and Museum
Tickets: $40 per person
Join the Friends of the Art Museum for our Annual Brunch where we drink, dine, mingle, vote on yearly member business, and enjoy a special presentation. This year, students in the Museum Associates Program will be in the galleries to guide attendees through the various exhibits, and Sabarsky Graduate Fellow Eloise McFarlane ’24.5 will give insights into her experience curating the exhibit David Teniers’s Theatrum Pictorium. A buffet-style brunch will be served and will include a card bar (cash no longer accepted) with one free drink per event ticket. The event will conclude with a student musical performance.
If you’re not currently a member of the Friends, be sure to activate or renew your membership to guarantee you’ll be able to attend.