The exhibits at The Nature Museum at Grafton encourage you to open the door to Vermont's natural beauty. Our innovative and interactive exhibits invite you to dig for fossils, discover minerals in a mine, watch honeybees at work in their hive (in season), or investigate underground life in a crawl through tunnel. While at the museum, you can learn about the New England's fascinating plants, animals and geology.

The pictures on the right are a few closeups of exhibits and below are pictures of our upstairs exhibits.

Art and Nature Exhibits

This spring in our Program Room gallery we are displaying works by two professional artists who are inspired by nature, interpreting it in different media, and contributing a portion from the sale of their art to help fund the Museum's educational programs.

June and July. Lynn Hoeft: Dancing with Color

Watercolor artist Lynn Hoeft of Brattleboro focuses on a narrowed-down landscape of the natural world, painting the beautiful objects that are always nearby: water-polished stones, a cluster of tiny berries, a bright blue feather or a sprig of rosemary. Most often painting from a bird's eye view, she includes paper and fabric patterns, historic photographs, and adds elements as diverse as opera glasses, a tuning fork, and antique buttons to her still life paintings.

August and September, Nancy Lent Lanoue: A Brush with Nature

Nancy Lanoue of Springfield, VT, grew up at the end of a dirt road in South Strafford, VT, overlooking Downer State Forest. Her father and abstract artist, Harlow Lent, was her first art teacher. After studying art and liberal arts, she continued in fashion design and textiles at the University of Vermont, followed by another two years absorbing the business of fashion in Manhattan. She picked up her paint brushes again in 1997 and since then has been studying with several artists. She is a member of the Vermont Watercolor Society.

Says Nancy of her work, "I am still developing as an artist and work entirely in watercolor. Perhaps the reason I lean toward realism is that the process of observing the subject is peaceful yet focused. Creating art is chance to linger on a beautiful object or scene before it disappears into the whirl of the moment."