Westport comes alive with art in the summer, with vibrant colors, textures, and styles! You are invited to visit the Westport Heritage House for the Spirit of Place Art Exhibition and Silent Auction, currently in place until the auction ends July 28, 2016. Heritage House is open Monday through Saturday, 10:30 am to 3 pm (closed Tuesdays), and Sunday from 1 to 3 pm.

Champlain Valley artists, 25 of them, express themselves thru many media, such as paint, clay, photography, or printmaking. Fabric art has a big place in the exhibit with rugs, weavings, and quilts.

When asked about her unique hooked rugs, Cheryl Raywood, who is passionate about her work, says that after drawing her design on a canvas backing, she uses wide, or primitive, wool loops, casual and relaxed in appearance. Sometimes she blends that method with proddy, a rag rug method from Northern Ireland and the United Kingdom where one-inch wide, cut strips are inserted in the rug design. Wool, sometimes pre-dyed or dyed by Cheryl, does not fade and wears well. She uses a top quality binding for edges, thus creating original and long-lasting works of art.

A Meet the Artists Reception will conclude the Silent Auction on Thursday, July 28, just prior to the Soundwaves concert in the park. Final bidding can take place before 7:00 pm, when the person, whose name is the last one on the bid sheet, can pay for the work of art and take it to his or her car!

Yellow “Studio Tour” signs will mark 12 studio locations. Artists are opening their place of creativity to the public on three Saturdays, July 9, August 20, and September 10, from 10:00 am to 4:00 pm. A map, available at Heritage House, lists the location of all the artists: Ellen Few Anderson, Ted Cornell at the Art Farm, James Goss, Meredith Johnston and Linda Smyth, Lora Langston, Caroline Thompson, Marilyn and Kip Trienens, Alison Weld, Westport Heritage House, Martha White—showing Abe Wolf’s work, and Joe DiNapoli at the Adirondack Art Association in Essex.