WOODSTOCK — Lela Jaacks’ interest in visual art dates to her years at Woodstock Union High School.

After she graduated, in 1995, and before she headed off to Rhode Island School of Design, she helped Charlet Davenport with the myriad details involved with Sculpturefest, then in its early years.

So being the featured artist at this year’s show, with two recent works set in the landscape around Charlet and Peter Davenport’s home on Prosper Road, is less a homecoming than a home-staying.

“I have known Charlet since I was in high school,” Jaacks said in a phone interview. “I was always interested in the arts, back in the early days.”

Jaacks’ work mixes natural and man-made materials. For “Pause III,” one of the works at Sculpturefest, Jaacks embedded objects from nature — pine cones, sticks, seed pods, sea shells, among many others — into rectangles of concrete slightly larger than a human head. The first iteration of this idea, “Pause I,” was made from items collected on the path between the Davenports’ and nearby King Farm, which also has hosted work from Sculpturefest.

Over time, some of the natural materials will decay, leaving fossil-like impressions in the concrete. One of the nine panels is missing three small pine cones. While I was looking at the show on a recent morning, a chipmunk chittered at me from a spruce branch. I like to think it stole the smaller pine cones, but couldn’t dislodge the larger ones.

The other piece, “Fairy Ring,” consists of aluminum poles bearing aloft panels of an aluminum composite material. Inspired by the naturally occurring rings of mushrooms that give the work its title, it also calls to mind leaves at the end of long stalks. Jaacks also likes to play with the idea of scale.

“I’ve always imagined myself as very small and getting down into the ring of mushrooms,” she said.

The panels slope downward and outward on stalks that range in height from around 4 feet to 10 or 12 feet. The piece was first installed at a solo show of Jaacks’ work last year at the Brattleboro Museum and Art Center, where it stood by the entrance. Jaacks said it’s nice to see it out in a more open setting. At Sculpturefest it’s surrounded by a ring of Queen Anne’s lace, clover and black-eyed Susans.

Charlet “came to the show in Brattleboro and she said, ‘That would be so lovely to have at Sculpturefest,’ ” Jaacks said.

Raised in rural North Queensland, Australia, where she and her brother canoed to school, Jaacks moved to Brownsville at age 8 after her father remarried. She credits her rural upbringing with her use of natural materials in her work.

At the moment, Jaacks is spending more time on her other career, as a wellness coach, but she still has lots of ideas for artworks.

“I’m definitely open to what’s next,” she said.

Sculpturefest is on view at the home of Charlet and Peter Davenport, at 304 Prosper Road in Woodstock, through the end of foliage season. Park along the road and walk the property during the daylight hours. There’s work by dozens of artists, some of it new, and some of it in place for many years. For more information, go to sculpturefest.org.

Large format at BigTown

BigTown Gallery in Rochester, Vt., is hosting “American Geography,” a show of photographs by Virginia Beahan, of Lyme, and Jim Dow, of Belmont, Mass., both of whom specialize in large format photography.

The show is up through Sept. 15, and there’s a reception planned for Saturday evening with pizza from the gallery’s wood-fired oven. Admission for the reception is $20 per person, free for children under 10. For more information, and to register in advance go to bigtownvermont.com.

Theater news

A production of a play about gun violence in schools, written by Lebanon High School students Arlo Hastings and Seth Kelly, raised around $6,000 for Sandy Hook Promise, an anti-gun-violence nonprofit. The show had a run of four performances at the Briggs Opera House at the end of June.

Looking ahead, Briggs Opera House will host the second installment of the Upper Valley 24-Hour Play Festival, where people get together to write and produce a play in 24 hours. Registration for the festival is open through Aug. 15, and the event takes place Sept. 6 and 7. Last year, the festival sold out the Eclipse Grange in Thetford, hence the move to the larger venue.

For more information, and to register, go to uvplayfest.org.

Music from afar

There’s an array of music available in the next few days. A trio of options, in no particular order:

There isn’t a lot of klezmer music on Upper Valley stages, but Seven Stars Arts Center, in Sharon, is hosting a kind of klezmer-adjacent show on Friday night. Zoe and Cloyd pairs fiddler/vocalist Natalya Zoe Weinstein, who grew up playing jazz, klezmer and classical music in Massachusetts, and multi-instrumentalist/vocalist John Cloyd Miller, who comes from a celebrated bluegrass family in North Carolina. They mix klezmer and bluegrass in a way that honors those traditions and takes them elsewhere. Tickets are $22 in advance, $25 at the door, free for children under 12. Go to sevenstarsarts.org.

Hartland native Kendra Comstock brings her Boston-based ensemble, The Pandora Consort, to her hometown for a performance at 2 p.m. Sunday of works by Medieval mystic Hildegard von Bingen. The program was originally put together for the Society for Historically Informed Performance’s Summer Concert Series. The performance will be held at the First Universalist Society Church at 8 Brownsville Road in Hartland Four Corners, next to the Skunk Hollow Tavern. Admission is by donation, with part of the proceeds going to Vermont flood relief.

The notice for a performance by the Vermont vocal ensemble Counterpoint Chorus at Randolph’s Chandler Music Hall prominently lists Bartok, Beethoven and Brahms. But more importantly, the program of European folk songs includes works by Fanny Mendelssohn and Clara Schumann, whose work isn’t heard as often as that of the men of their era.

The performance is scheduled for 3 p.m. Sunday. Tickets are $25, $10 for students, and free for children 12 and under. Go to chandler-arts.org.

Alex Hanson can be reached at ahanson@vnews.com or 603-727-3207.