External Exhibitions

Carol Boucher, Skywalk

In Carol Boucher’s abstract series she explores color without form as a doorway into freedom of expression. Playing with complementary colors, Boucher finds it exciting to create something without a definite image in mind, limited only by size, the properties of the paint and her ability to adapt to different ways of seeing.  

Boucher utilized tools and dragged paint to create these works, using multiple thin layers that were allowed to dry and then layered again, sometimes dripping water on the paint to change the look and outcome. The artist found it refreshing to see what happened as she dragged and dripped the paint - delightfully random and not totally under her control.  Iridescent media and interference media mixed into the acrylic paint creates a surface that changes as the viewer moves around, with some colors will becoming more prominent as others recede.  

Amy Jelen, Skywalk (pictured)

Amy Jelen spent many years working in stained glass before she began experimenting with paper as a medium. She finds that in some ways her collage work mimics her stained glass style through a shared method of utilizing tiny pieces to create larger scenes. 

Inspired by the colors and textures she sees in the natural world, Jelen uses paper from the pages of magazines to create abstract pieces, imagined landscapes, and recognizable Vermont scenes. Through her work the artist seeks to connect with community, stir a feeling in a viewer, and create works that communicate serenity and quiet the mind.

Casey Blanchard (pictured)

Primarily a self-taught artist, Casey explores her experiences through the engaging and often unpredictable print medium of monoprinting. She is most interested in the spiritual aspects that emerge in the image, particularly relating to how we live in the world and how the world lives in us. In the beginning, the work may be a search for answers, but in the end it's more about being here without them.

Casey Blanchard was born in Greenwich, CT in 1953. She lives in Shelburne, VT with her husband, Dan Cox, and their daughter, Julia Cox. Her artwork is found on the walls of health care facilities, private residential collections, corporate offices, the hospitality industry, on web designs, and various published materials.

Johanne Durocher Yordan    

Johanne is a Burlington based artist who works out of her studio on Pine Street. She was born in Quebec, Canada, but has lived most of her life in Vermont. It was not until 1998 that Johanne began committing herself to her artwork and finding her own voice. She studied at the University of Vermont and has since developed a diverse body of work that is a testament to her ability to succeed as an independent artist. Creating work that fits a variety of audiences, while always building upon her unique self-taught style, is the secret to her success. Johanne has always been the type of person who explores on her own, tapping into the unknown and developing her own fashion and techniques. Many of her paintings include found or collected items which add depth and meaning to combine form and function to her work. Her abstract work captures her emotions and represents her unique style and expression. Johanne has exhibited her work extensively throughout Vermont in both solo and group exhibitions over the past 12 years.

Cameron Schmitz

Cameron Schmitz grew up in Greenwich, Connecticut and spent idle time in her youth drawing. Encouraged by two artistic parents, including her mother who is also a painter, she learned at a very early age the joy and satisfaction of participating in the visual arts. 
Schmitz holds a Master of Fine Arts in Painting from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting & Drawing from the University of New Hampshire, in addition to studying Art and Art History at Studio Arts Center International in Florence, Italy. 

Following a month-long artist residency at the Vermont Studio Center in 2006, Schmitz moved to Vermont after discovering Vermont's rugged landscape to be uniquely inspirational. Now located in the Brattleboro area, Schmitz actively exhibits her work regionally and nationally. Her work has been featured at Fitchburg Art Museum's biannual exhibition, Ne England/New Talent, Green Mountain College, Kyoto Seika University in Japan, Emory University, Northern Arizona University Art Museum, and Rogue Space in Chelsea, New York. Her work is represented by The Drawing Room Art Gallery in Cos Cob, CT and Furchgott Sourdiffe in Shelburne, VT, and she is an artist member of the Copley Society of Art in Boston. In addition to her painting practice, Schmitz is also the Gallery Curator of The Drawing Room Art Gallery and teaches painting at the River Gallery School in Brattleboro, VT.

Carl Rubino
 
I strive to create unique interpretive, impressionistic and abstract images that relate my personal vision of or reaction to the subject matter before me.   Before I even pull out the camera I try to experience all that my subject reveals, or even what it makes illusive – not just the obvious, like the literal view, the colors, texture and patterns - but the less obvious sensual aspects, the energy and the “feeling” that it conveys. Whether in landscape, abstract, street photography, fine art nude or whatever else captures my interest, I seek to find and interpret life’s visual symphonies, one click at a time. 

I feel that to a large extent my photographs consist of three different points of view: the raw material that is the literal subject matter of the image that my camera captures; what I see, sense, and work to portray when I interpret that subject; and what the viewer sees when looking at the image on the wall.  Those may be three very distinct views of what is essentially rooted in the same thing.   That, to me, is stimulating art.  And that is a great part of what draws me to photography.

Jeff Schneiderman 

Jeff Schneiderman works as a wedding, portrait and fine art photographer in Williston, VT.  He has been taking photographs for over 35 years, traveled extensively throughout the U.S. and the world and has made Vermont his home for the last 27 years. Patterns are a major theme in Jeff’s work as he is fascinated with the designs in nature how they are reflected in things manmade.  More of Jeff's work can be seen at: www.jeffschneiderman.com."

Krista Cheney

Krista Cheney is a native Vermonter, currently living in St. George, Vermont. She studied English Literature and Agricultural Economics at the University of Vermont. She has studied photography since 2003, taking classes and workshops at local venues and the Maine Media Workshops in Rockport, Maine.

Carolyn Enz-Hack

Carolyn Enz-Hack's work includes painting, sculpture, and scenery design. While she has spent most of her life on a farm she holds a degree in theatrical design from Rutgers University and has spent years designing for the theatre. Her rural sensibility is informed by themes explored in ancient theatrical and religious literature, and by developments in cross-disciplinary Science. Each piece is an attempt to process the exterior world through an internal lens. Her most recent solo exhibitions have been at the Castleton Downtown Gallery in Rutland, Vermont, and Creare Inc. and the Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center both in Lebanon, New Hampshire. She is the recipient of a Vermont Arts Endowment Award, a painting merit award from the Chaffee Center for the Arts, a residency at the Vermont Studio Center, and her work has been selected for exhibition in regional and nationally competitive shows.

Erinn Simon

Erinn Simon is a fiber artist and yarnbomber. She crochets tapestries, toys, baby mobiles, vegetables, baked goods, blankets, scarves for trees, and the occasional bloodthirsty zombie cupcake. Her work has appeared in group shows in Burlington, Seattle, and Australia and she ships her one of a kind creations to customers around the world. She lives in the Old North End of Burlington with her husband and three kids. You can find her on facebook as Callie Callie Jump Jump.

Nancy Chapman, oil on canvas (Blue Path)

Nancy Chapman’s landscape works are stemmed from memory.  Finding herself aware of nature’s active dialogue, Chapman explores painting as a way for her to touch what cannot be literally touched. Celebrating natural beauty through form, texture, line and color - Chapman’s goal is not to describe a scene for the viewer, but rather to render the setting’s spirit and to reveal the story.

Julie Dunigan, collage-acrylic relief printing and painting (Blue path & Mary Fletcher)

Julie Dunigan’s work combines collage, relief printmaking and painting as a template to explore color.  With line drawings inspired by the architecture of nature and human-built structures she finds visually intriguing, an internal excitement emerges and gives rise to a collaboration with color, one which can often lead her to the edge of herself. Dunigan finds the concept of color to be an infinite labyrinth, and feels enormous joy and relief in the completion of a piece and the inherent learning that energizes the process to begin again.

Francois de Melogue, photographs (McClure 4)

Francois de Melogue sees the world not as a static backdrop, but as a living story. Drawn to the characters in the landscape, his work explores the beauty of things that have slipped out of the modern pace yet keep their presence intact. Through the camera, he looks for the dignity in age and the beauty of impermanence. Creating images shaped by time and place, the artist searches for moments where life feels grounded and enduring. Through a practice that often moves beyond the visual to capture the full atmosphere of a moment, images are given a second life in which meaning isn’t tied to usefulness. De Melogue’s goal is to offer a quiet place to look again, to notice what endures, and to let it stay with us a little longer.

Becky Chappell, mixed media (Smith Patrick 3)

Becky Chappell’s process begins with playful exploration with many different media and tools, with no thought of the outcome, providing the artist a level of freedom to experiment. As the painting progresses, Chappell finds herself more aware of what wants to be expressed, turning her focus to refining and details, utilizing shapes and marks that speak to her to create a strong final composition.

Todd Cummings, digital illustrations (Breast Care Center & Shepardson 2)

Todd Cummings finds inspiration in nature through his time outdoors and in the backcountry. His work celebrates the wild, natural places of Vermont and New England all that nature offers the mind, body, and soul. Cummings’ technique is a fusion of photography and illustration. Using his camera, he gathers visual documentation of places he loves. Back in his studio, he uses these reference photos, digital drawing tools, and software to create modern illustrated, travel-style art pieces that reveal the essence of a place through his unique vision and experience. 

Greg Nicolai, photographs (Hematology/Oncology) 

Greg Nicolai aspires to turn the subjects he photographs into something more interesting, finding joy in the process even more than the end result. Forms, shapes and patterns - regardless of the environment - create the initial interest. The artist seeks to emphasize and intensify these details, utilizing color only to help further define the subject. Nicolai feels that finding the best composition presents a fun challenge, and discovering that elusive element which animates a photograph to be the reward.

Carol Boucher, monotypes (Breast Imaging)

Carol Boucher created this series utilizing a process of rolling ink and paint onto thin metal or acrylic plates, then placing damp paper over the plate and pressing the image onto paper, using an etching press to evenly apply the ink to the paper. The paper that is pulled away from the plate is called a monotype – a mirror image of what was on the plate. Multiple colors can be applied together, making the process more like painting.  Boucher may choose to keep the faint image remaining on the plate and add color or imagery, but the result will be a cousin, not a twin of the first monotype.  She may not necessarily keep the image that is on the plate, but will pull one print (monotype) and then can clean the plate – in some cases adding colored pencil once the ink is dry. 

Occasionally Boucher will apply ink to thin pieces of card, fabric or leaves onto the plate. This is where the fun begins, as well as the spontaneity, unpredictability and humility.  She finds that sometimes an idea doesn’t work, but the happy accident will gift her with a new direction to explore, and through repetition of the process she will learn to use those effects to create art that can’t be created any other way. Boucher feels when she creates that “Self” or “Artist” does not exist. The editor is out of the room, the critic belongs to the future. Time passes as the artwork takes shape. Each mark knits itself into the rest to make a kind of sense.  Consciousness of this process while undertaking it is not necessarily helpful.  When idle thoughts intrude, it is time to stop for the day.