BACS Community
Member News
Save the Date: Annual Spring Luncheon and Voting for Officers Put a circle around Saturday, June 1, on your calendar to save the date for our annual members' luncheon, celebrating the conclusion of another fiscal year. Social chair Eileen Larsen is looking for...
Member News
The 2023 BACS holiday luncheon was celebrated on December 9 at First Church of Christ, Congregational. We thank Social Chair Eileen Larsen and her team of helper-elves for their creative and beautiful party making. The sandwiches were catered, but everything else,...
Smartphone Workshop Goes Outdoors
BACS members and others joined Randi Freundlich, professional photographer, on October 6th, for our first program: Smartphone Photography and how to use the smartphone tools to get the best photos possible. The crisp fall air was perfect for hands-on shooting outside....
Opportunity to Exhibit:
The Library Gallery will be mounting its Biennial Community Show from March to May, 2023. BACS members are invited to submit. The Biennial is a juried exhibit of art by people who live or work in the Bedford area. BACS members are invited to submit work.
- Art and craft in all media is eligible.
- Work must be original, created in the last 5 years and not shown before in the Library.
- 2-D work must be framed and ready for hanging with wire. (NO sawtooth hangers)
- Limited to two (2)entries per person. No entry fee.
Click here to read the details on the Call of Entries.
To download guidelines with an entry form, click here.
Our Holiday Luncheon took place December 2022 at the First Church of Christ, Congregational,in Bedford. Our thanks to Eileen Larsen for heading the committee who planned this event for all those who helped in setup/food prep/cleanup. We enjoyed homemade sandwiches catered from Ken’s Deli and some brought appetizers and desserts to share. We played an ice breaker game, getting to know our tablemates and did a Yankee Swap.
Our spring luncheon took place on June 4 at Kathy Morse’s home. The weather was perfect, and the garden setting divine. Our warmest thanks to Kathy for all the touches that made the day special. We enjoyed sandwiches from Eva’s Little Kitchen, along with desserts provided by BACS members. Six lucky members took home door prizes, and we voted on our elected officers for the new year. A fabulous celebration!
We give our sincere thanks to Sue Iozzo, who for so many years stored the screens and other equipment for our annual art show in her garage. Sue will be retiring this month and plans to relocate to the Cape in July. Our gratitude also goes to Laura and Tim Wallace, who graciously transported the screens to their new home in the COA storage area in the basement of the Town Center Building and set them up for easy access. Finally, hats off to Judi Babcock, who is storing the art show bin at her house. What a happy ending to this longstanding storage challenge!
Grace Chapel’s untitled summer show continues through August 20. Artwork by BACS members Judi Babcock, Martha Brill, Florence Como, Dana Holley, Sylvia Mallory, Yvonne Sandell, Doris Smith, and Laura Wallace is on exhibit. To view the show, you can visit the gallery at 59 Worthen Road, Lexington.
Maria Green had an etching in Concord Art’s spring juried show “Among the Trees.” She also has had a piece accepted in LexArt’s recent “Natural Visions” show.
In the Belmont Gallery of Art’s recent show “Bits and Pieces: Art Repurposed,” Maria Green had a crazy collage, The Floating World Orange, on display, and two works by Doris Smith, Jazz Collage #10 and Jazz Collage #14, were also on exhibit.
Artwork by Anita Feld and Doris Smith was accepted in Concord Art’s 2022 MJ2 competition. The exhibit showcased works created in collage, crafts, drawing, graphics, mixed media, photography, and printmaking.
Mountain View, a painting by Sylvia Mallory, was featured in Fusion Art’s recent juried online “Members’ Choice” art show.
Ekaterina Klevtsova recently had paintings on display at the Healing Through the Arts Gallery at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Nashua, New Hampshire.
The Concord Free Public Library recently hosted a solo show of artwork by Martha Brill. The exhibition, “Art in a Pandemic,” is an eclectic collection of artistic and poetic adventures showing one woman’s attempt to survive and create art in these trying times.
Shamin Koya’s oil painting Pigments in My Dream was selected by curators at Newton Open Studios for the recent show “Unquiet” at Galatea Gallery, 460 Harrison Avenue, Boston. In addition, Shamin had an oil painting on exhibit in the “Embarrassment of Riches” show at the TILL Wave Gallery, Watertown.
Ellen Hurley’s paintings Kittens at Play and Brass Pitcher and Roses were accepted into the Lyme (CT) Art Association’s juried “Deck the Walls” exhibition, which ran through the beginning of 2022.
Kathy Deflice-Secor had several paintings hanging at the recent “Jump In” show at Galerie d’Orsay on Newbury Street, Boston. The exhibition catalog shows Virgo, one of her works, as well as a photo of her painting group.
“Local Talent: A Juried Show of Work by Members of the Bedford Arts and Crafts Society” was featured in 2021 at the Bedford Free Public Library. To view a slide show of BACS members’ art and craft work shown in the exhibit, click here.
Here are three student works from Valeria Lanza‘s mixed media class, co-sponsored by BACS and Bedford Recreation.
Watercolor by Patricia MacQueen
Bird and Flower, oil by Stewart Leshin
Watercolor, artist unknown.
Photo highlights from crafting times held at the Bedford COA on Wednesdays
Dawn Warrington and Sylvia Mallory make sea glass pendants for Bedford Day.
Lucy McGovern and Jane Franklin roll paper to make beads.
Bedford Arts and Crafts Society Celebrates 60th Anniversary in 2016
Bedford Arts and Crafts Society founder John Dodge with current and former BACS presidents (l-r) Mary Jane St. Amour, Evelyn Rice, Sylvia Mallory, Alyce McLaughlin, Alba Kenney, and Jeanne Reidy.
BACS founder John Dodge cutting BACS’s 60th anniversary cake, with Evelyn Rice and President Sylvia Mallory looking on.
1956 was Elvis’s breakout year as a rock star, with the release of “Heartbreak Hotel” and other chart-toppers. The New York Yankees won the World Series over the Brooklyn Dodgers in seven games. Peyton Place and Eloise hit the bestseller charts. We liked Ike, TV dinners, and sleek cars with Space Age tailfins.
Meanwhile, in Bedford, a group was coalescing around a shared love of the practice and appreciation of painting and crafts.
That year, local residents John Dodge, Lucia Kespert, and Margaret “Peg” Whitley began to gather for the pleasure of painting together. The trio hatched the idea of founding a group to share their enjoyment and knowledge of painting with others. Thus was born the Bedford Arts and Crafts Society (BACS), which evolved into a rich resource for local artists and crafters. BACS became the go-to place for classes, workshops, and demos through which the participants built their skills—and developed lasting friendships. The Regional Art Show, established by the late Connie Hanley in 2000, has become a signature event for BACS, much anticipated each year on Bedford Day.
On Wednesday, May 11, 2016, members of the Bedford Arts and Crafts Society gathered at Scutra Restaurant in Arlington to celebrate the 60th anniversary of BACS. We were honored to have founder John Dodge present as our special guest. John related how he studied art under the GI Bill after serving in World War II and subsequently made a living in the art business, becoming a specialist in the hand-coloring of photographic reproductions. His hand-colored works are hanging in well-known places around the world, among them the Waldorf Astoria in New York, the Palmer House in Chicago, as well as Children’s Hospital and the Seaport Hotel in Boston.
The evening also featured a lively round of BACS trivia and the presentation of roses to Mr. Dodge and to several other past presidents who joined in the evening’s revelry—Alba Kenney, Alyce McLaughlin, Jeanne Reidy, Evelyn Rice, and Mary Jane St. Amour.
To mark the club’s anniversary, BACS will be raffling and auctioning off several one-of-a-kind artworks and crafts this year. These include a fully furnished “vintage” dollhouse painstakingly crafted by BACS members; an original, framed pastel painting by artist Denise Rainis; an original, framed pen-and-ink drawing by artist Sue Funk; and handcrafted decorative boxes. Stay tuned for further details over the coming months! And be sure to visit the BACS booth and the Regional Art Show on Bedford Day.
Highlights from Bedford Day, 2015
Congratulations to the Bedford Day 2015 Regional Art Show Winners. Click here for all the winners and participants.
For photo highlights click here and scroll down.