Shelburne Museum announces this year’s exhibition schedule

Shelburne Museum has announced its exhibition schedule for 2025, offering artistic experiences exploring the intersections of art, history and culture.

This year’s exhibitions include works by contemporary Indigenous artists, designers and textile and ceramic artists. Opening on May 10, the museum will present six exhibitions, each showcasing a rich tapestry of creativity, running through Oct. 26.

Sound, Art & Ink: Higher Ground Gig Posters
May 10-Oct. 26
Shelburne Museum celebrates a creative collaboration among an independent music venue, a visionary design studio and a corps of dedicated printmakers that memorialized the musical moments that shaped lives and nurtured nostalgia through that ephemeral medium — the gig poster. Sound, Art & Ink highlights 27 years of collaboration that chronicles of Vermont’s musical and artistic legacy.

Photo by Andy Duback. 
Karen Petersen, The Dreamer, 2006. Bronze, 28 x 43 x 12 inches
Photo by Andy Duback
Karen Petersen, The Dreamer, 2006. Bronze, 28 x 43 x 12 inches

Herd: Karen Petersen’s Bronze Horses
May 10-Oct. 26
Herd transforms the museum’s grounds into a pasture for Karen Petersen’s striking equine sculptures. Stripping away details like manes, tails and ears, Petersen distills the horse’s form to its essence, revealing primal yet elegant and powerful shapes.

Her decades-long exploration of the horse captures a balance of power, sensitivity and grace. Inspired by ancient myths and modern aesthetics, Petersen’s mastery of bronze brings the spirit of the horse to life in ways that transcend mere representation.

Dahlov Ipcar: The Possibilities of Pattern
May 10-Oct. 26
Explore the rich imagination of Vermont-born artist Dahlov Ipcar. Best known as an author and illustrator of children’s books, Ipcar’s talents extended into textiles, including needlepoints, hooked rugs and soft sculptures of real and fantastical creatures.

This exhibition offers a rare look at her textile creations, showcasing how she translated her bold, whimsical aesthetic into a variety of mediums.

Blueprint of a Collection: Cyanotype Photography
May 10-Oct. 26
David Sokosh reimagines objects from Shelburne Museum’s collection through the 19th-century cyanotype process. Known for its vivid blue tones, the medium highlights Sokosh’s ability to create works ranging from documentary photographs to experimental compositions on unexpected surfaces like quilts and hatboxes.

This immersive exhibition invites viewers to consider American material culture in new ways, blending historical and contemporary perspectives.

Porcelain Love Letters: The Art of Mara Superior
May 10-Oct. 26
This will be a retrospective of Mara Superior’s porcelain art. Originally trained as a painter, Superior found her true medium in porcelain, combining intricately painted imagery with sculptural forms to explore themes of art history, environmentalism and domesticity.

Her pieces, often described as love letters to the world, invite audiences to engage with their timeless beauty and layered meanings.

Making a Noise: Indigenous Sound Art
June 21-Oct. 26
Artists Kite (Oglala Lakota), Marie Watt (Seneca, German-Scot ancestry) and Nanibah Chacon (Diné and Xicana) merge sound and textile design to create thought-provoking, interactive works.

These pieces explore relationships between humans and the nonhuman world — plants, animals and objects that serve as ancestors and shape our lives. The exhibition amplifies connections between tradition and contemporary expression.

For more information about the exhibitions and events, visit the museum’s website at www.shelburnemuseum.org.