MANCHESTER — Southern Vermont Arts Center's 2026 Art from the Schools Exhibition opened with a reception on Friday, with families and community members flooding the grounds.
Outside of the Elizabeth de C. Wilson Museum, which housed the pre-K through eighth grade portion of the exhibition, live music entertained the crowd. Just inside the doors, staff greeted guests with maps, pizza, and ice cream.
The work exhibited in the Elizabeth de C. Wilson Museum was representative of students in 29 local elementary and middle schools, as well as participants from the local Bennington County homeschooled population.
Across the way, inside of Yester House, folks gathered to view the extensive high school portion of the exhibition, which was representative of the students from seven regional high schools.
Fifth grader Julian Brondino, of the Village School of North Bennington, created art through a partnership program with the Vermont Arts Exchange (VAE). Together with VAE Arts Instructor Caitilin McAddo, Brondino and his classmates learned about the construction of armatures and paper mache in the production of a series of fanciful sculptures – wiener dogs, decked out in whimsical fashion.
"We used a leftover cardboard tube, and we used it as the back," explained Brondino. "Then we got wire and crafted the legs and tail. Then we wrapped it with newspaper and glue and painted it, and then made collars and hats." Complete with lifelike eyes, roller wheels and an axel made from Tinker Toys, and a puppy snout, the little wiener dogs made a mischievous little cohort.
On the floor next to Brondio's wiener dog were three others, sectioned off with yellow caution tape; they were crowded around an ice cream cone that someone had "dropped" on the floor, building on the fantastical nature of the scene.
"I think this is a circus," exclaimed a visitor, pointing out the lot. Then, turning to another Village School set of projects, this time by the sixth grade class, "And – oh my goodness – it's a 'Handwich,' and there's 'Finger Chickens' instead of chicken fingers."
McAdoo pointed out the ceramics projects. "Food, but everything has a weird twist to it. 'Cranky Cauliflower,' 'Blueberries in Love,' 'Pouting Pickle.'" She laughed, pointing out another group of paper mache fruit nearby, these ones completed by second graders. Then, she turned to greet more students as they arrived.
Homeschooled sisters Tilia and Cypris Brosnan (ages 10 and 8, respectively), stood by the stairs with their mom, pointing to their art that was mounted to the wall at the top of the first flight. Tilia created a color pencil and pen horse and foul, grazing in a field.
Cypris created a reduction linocut block print. Cypris described how she used the carved linoleum block to make the initial prints, and then carved more out of the blocks for a second printing with another color. For her older sister, Tilia, the subject of the horse and foal was inspired by her deep love of horses.
In another gallery, Vermont Arts Exchange teaching artist Rhonda Ratray was speaking with parents of Southshire School students, pointing out the process taken to create the pieces on display. Through a series of bird sculptures, paper mache was one of the themes explored this past year at Southshire, but so was the creation of pressed tin fish.
While many of the pieces of art were abstracts or themed by skills development, others were themed to cross disciplines and other learning objectives. Across the gallery, folks were examining art with a science-based theme.
Anaglyph 3D glasses (with one red lens and one cyan lens) were being used to view the art of Long Trail School's sixth graders. The hidden image art in red and blue ink were offset to create the illusion of a three-dimensional effect. If one closed either the left eye or the right, while viewing, parts of the image disappeared.
Novella Rossi, a third grader with Fisher Elementary, stood in front of a table of found item art exhibits made from repurposed toys. The third grader walked her mom through the creation of "Paradise Lost."
"This is my apocalyptic scene," said Rossi, "but I might have borrowed the name from a book." All of the broken toys were collected locally and donated to Fisher Elementary School, Rossi said, and the project took about a month to complete.
Nearby, Manchester Elementary Middle School eighth grader Noah Kent's ceramic dragon was garnering a lot of attention. The light green beast was artfully crafted, as it slunk close to the surface of the rise that held it. And, in front of that was a wall of collage and poetry.
Manchester Elementary Middle School student Maisey Tyler stood next to her poetry collage, which prominently profiled racing as a personal interest, "Despite the dangers, you can still do it – and it's really fun – and this is the assignment with my poem."
Tyler's friend Ava Smith based her poetry collage off of the sea, "focusing on the many mystical parts to it, like the legends and stuff."
Although the two Manchester Elementary Middle School sixth grade students enjoyed their time at MEMS, they were excited to be joining the new Equinox Valley Middle School next year, and become a part of its first class of students. How this new step forward might impact their identity and interests, they were not sure.
The sheer scale of the 2026 Art from the Schools Exhibition was difficult to comprehend. "This is so great," remarked Sherry Schwarz, noting that all of her children were in the show this year, and that turnout for past years was also very busy. "But, this is as crowded as I've ever seen it."
"There are 2,197 students represented here," said Erin Kaufman, SVAC Manager of Education and Programs, adding that while a few of the pieces were collaborative, most were representative of a single student.
"Every single one of them is like the tip of a huge backstory that includes all the students' experience, and all of the people associated with the student, and the classroom culture that gave rise to it," said Kaufman.
She added that the "tip of the iceberg" visible to visitors of the 2026 Art from the Schools Exhibition might not fully illustrate "the art teacher being up at night, trying to figure out how to scaffold the learning experience, and all the connections, like the atmosphere of trust between them."
"[Visitors] just see the tip, and there's this huge wedge behind every single object in here," said Kaufman. "You're seeing just the tip of the iceberg in this incredibly gorgeous magical way here."
Southern Vermont Art Center's 2026 Art from the Schools Exhibition was made possible with assistance from Wilcox Ice Cream, Sam's Wood Fired Pizza, Mulligans of Manchester, Mother Myrick's Confectionary – as well as musicians from Long Trail School, who provided several hours of live entertainment.
The High School portion of the Southern Vermont Art Center's 2026 Art from the Schools Exhibition will be on display through May 3 in Yester House and the Pre-K through Eighth Grade portion will be on display through May 17 in the Elizabeth de C. Wilson Museum.
For more information, visit svac.org.