Church View by Emily Umphlett,
teacher of art at Shaftsbury and Woodford Elementaries

Teachers’ Art Show

April 2 – June 21

This school year has been a challenge for teachers! Many classroom teachers see their students in person only a couple of days a week, and it’s even worse for those who teach “specials,” like music, physical education, and art.

For this year’s Student Art Show, we have decided to do something different. We heard from so many art teachers who lost their classrooms, rarely see their students, and haven’t been able to collect artwork from them when they did. The usual Student Art Show seemed unrealistic, but we couldn’t let the celebration of visual creative arts in our schools miss a year.

In 2021, Bennington Museum will host its first ever Art Teachers’ Art Show instead. We have invited the art teachers at all of Bennington’s and the adjacent towns’ schools to contribute work of their own. We hope this will be an opportunity for art teachers to take some time for themselves, nurture their own creativity, and to reflect on their experiences as art teachers during the COVID19 pandemic.

The Art Teachers’ Art Show will be on view from April 2 through June 21, 2021 in the Grandma Moses Schoolhouse. We invite our visitors to join us in celebrating the enduring importance of visual arts in our community and, especially, the teachers who keep the arts alive in our schools.