Friday, May 9, 2008 

DORSET — The Dorset Library is pleased to have the works of painter Brian Sweetland on exhibit during the month of May.

Sweetland's oil paintings of rural Vermont are rendered with a gentle hand. His subjects are the threatened landscape, that which is bound to disappear, and he is adept at capturing both its substance and its essence. Pastoral Vermont is depicted lovingly, but not sentimentally; rusted farm equipment hulks under the cover of snow; Holsteins squelch in the muddy yard.  He paints out-of-doors year round, always in the company of his beloved dogs.

Sweetland was born in Wheaton, Minn. in 1952 and was raised in Montana, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Ohio. After graduating from Ohio University in world history, he moved to Washington, D.C., where he independently developed his childhood interest in art and started oil painting.

In 1977, his sketches caught the attention of Dean Faussett, a prominent landscape and mural painter, and founder of the Southern Vermont Arts Center. Sweetland was invited to move to Vermont to continue his studies. A grant from the Society for the Preservation of Traditional Values in the Fine Arts helped Sweetland begin his

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apprenticeship. His first major exhibit was held in 1980 and since then he has shown at many galleries in Vermont, New York, Alabama and Massachusetts. His work is found in many private and public collections around the world. 

The exhibit is free and open to the public. Library hours are: Monday, Wednesday and Friday 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., Tuesday and Thursday 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Saturday 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. For information, visit www.dorsetlibrary.org or call the library at 867-5774.