External Exhibitions

Pievy Polyte

Polyte is an artist, coffee farmer, and founder of Peak Macaya Coffee. He is from Peak Macaya, Haiti and has been living in Burlington, Vermont since 2016. Peak Macaya is the second tallest mountain region in Haiti, and home to the country’s last area of cloud forest – characterized as a tropical and moist climate at high altitudes. Polyte has been working with the local community to repair this area and support farming efforts since the devastation of Hurricane Matthew in 2016. Polyte grew up around coffee, having learned the trade and growing techniques from his father, he and his brother Otheniel expanded the family coffee production into a model that supports, involves, and invests in their local community. They are focused on protecting the region, its diversity, and its inhabitants through education, nutrition, and sound environmental practices. Through this lens, Polyte founded a school that provides eco-friendly education along with daily nutritional programs and medical services. Today, the school has over 500 students. All products sold by Peak Macaya Coffee Co-Op are made by Peak Macaya artisans using materials from the region. The coffee and cocoa are produced using sustainable and environmental practices. A portion of proceeds from artworks sold during this exhibition will be generously donated by Polyte towards the installation of composting toilets in Peak Macaya, Haiti

Julia Purinton

Whenever Purinton finds herself in nature, whether hiking, gardening, or just taking a walk, she photographs scenes and moments that catch her attention for one reason or another. These photographs form a sort of reference library for her to use in the studio. In this current group of paintings, she has used her image library as a jumping-off point to explore the interplay of color and light in landscape in an abstracted expression. Some of these pieces reference wilderness; others gardens and domestic scenery. She works in the hope that viewers will respond to the energy and beauty inherent in the natural world and be reminded of the importance of a diverse environment to our physical health, our psychological well-being, and our future as humans on our remarkable planet. Each of her paintings is a meditation and a little prayer.

Carol Boucher

These paintings are imagined/remembered landscapes, done in acrylic on canvas or panel. Boucher paints with oils on location (plein air) in the warmer months. She has been painting since childhood, and for over 25 years has sold her artwork in galleries and at juried outdoor art festivals. The artist thanks you for taking time to view her work!

Erika Lawlor Schmidt

The expression "warp and weft" is used metaphorically the way "fabric" is; e.g., "the warp and weft of a person's life" equates to "the fabric of a person's life". Warp and weft are sometimes used even more generally in literature to describe the basic dichotomy of the world we live in, as in, up/down, in/out, black/white, Sun/Moon yin/yang, etc.

Brecca Loh

Loh is an expressive abstract artist residing in Stowe. She grew up in southern Connecticut with easy access to New York City with all its artistic and cultural influences. Specializing in colorful and emotionally rich expressionist paintings using acrylics and mixed media, her paintings are about the harmony of colors and the feelings that they provoke. To the artist, colors have a language. They speak to one another. Her process is to create a dance of colors that creates a sense of intimacy and wonder for the viewer. By painting in a non-representational way, it allows the viewer to bring their personal feelings and experiences to the canvas. The painting then becomes theirs, not hers.

Elizabeth Nelson

After a short visit to Iceland in 2012, Nelson experienced an irresistible magnetic pull, a need to return for a longer time to paint what she saw and felt of the landscape and weather; to be a part of the life there. Five years later she was able to go back to Iceland twice in 2017 and 2018 for a month-long artist residency at SĺM, (the Association of Icelandic Artists), an organization that supports a cultural exchange of visual artists with all countries of the world. As a result of the experience of Iceland, her painting process became a collaboration. She became open to the

suggestions of the paint’s motion and interaction with the surface. Instead of being the solitary maker, the paint and the surface had their say too. As she continued, she became acutely aware of the relationship of the changing climate to what was happening on the surface in front of her. All was coming together to become an expression of change, of melting glaciers, of storms, and unsettled weather. As each level of the painting simultaneously revealed and camouflaged, it reflected the changing weather or the very stability of the earth underneath, and her deepening shifts of perception.

Colossal Sanders

David Holub (aka Colossal Sanders) lives at the intersection of words and images, humor and heartbreak, reality and make-believe. His humorous, quirky, and whimsical illustrations adorn greeting cards, stickers, prints, and handmade toys across North America. After a nomadic 20-year career teaching college writing and working at some of the nation’s largest and smallest publications, David now creates his work with 100 percent pure, all-natural delight from his in-house factory in N. Ferrisburgh, VT.

Louise Arnold, oil paintings (Main Street Connector, ACC 3)

Arnold is a landscape painter with a background in Landscape Architecture. She works both en plein air and from her photographs, painting in New England landscapes with which she has great familiarity. Her subject matter ranges from mountains and streams to barns, abandoned farm machinery, and cars, which are prevalent features in many of the landscapes that she paints. She is most interested in capturing the character or spirit of specific places, and in exploring how the qualities of those places affect her as an artist working in them. The paintings that result have evolved from this exploration and engagement.

Mike Sipe, photographs (Main Street Connector, ACC 3)

The Lake Champlain region is Sipe’s unparalleled muse; the beauty of the lake, skies, mountains, valley, and the people enjoying its splendor. He doesn’t have to travel the world to find world-class beauty; it is here, in his own backyard. His ability to find the area's essence is evolving and it is exhilarating to him. He loves to capture vistas with just the right light accenting a center of interest, the effects of natural elements and motion, and when he finds a wide tonal range, the elegant impression of black and white. Sipe’s objective is to use natural light in capturing images, by being in the right place at the right time with the right equipment, evoking a magical light and an interesting confluence of elements. His goal is to offer carefully selected prints to an audience that is also captivated by the beauty of the region and the exquisiteness just outside our doorsteps.

Jean Gerber, oil paintings (Main Street Connector, ACC 3)

Gerber’s art begins in her journals. These journals have traveled many rivers in zip lock bags in a canoe in Maine, the Adirondacks, Alaska, The Yukon, and Northwest Territories. The North is vast and wild. She sees things in the North she knows many will never see. So she sketches and records with pens and watercolors – a Gwitchin fish camp falling into the river due to melting permafrost, a bear searching for salmon along the shore, and wide empty gravel bars stretching on forever. This is her art. It’s bound up with an outdoor life as a guide and living in an off-grid cabin in Vermont. Back home in the cabin she works from the sketches to create oil paintings. Because of sketching and spending many full days, sometimes a month, with the landscape, the memory of the scene is clear. She feels she is back there as she works on the paintings. So her art begins with a journey. To travel far into the wilds and record and bring it back is the most fulfilling way for her to do art.

(pictured) Brian Drourr, photographs on metal (McClure 4)

Drourr is a 4th generation photographer. Some of his earliest memories are of playing with his father’s Nikon FM3 camera. He has learned as much from just getting out there and taking photos as he has from any formal photography education he has received. He has carried his love of adventure and photography together over the years, and thus his "photographic style" evolved from his passion for the outdoors and being in nature. He always strives to evoke that sense of "being there" to the images he captures, and he hopes to bring that sense of awe and amazement that he feels when capturing his photos to the viewer.

Linda Blackerby, acrylic & mixed media paintings (Breast Care Center)

Blackerby is a Vermont-based abstract mixed-media painter whose work is influenced by her passion for both interior design and travel. As she continues to evolve as an abstract and mixed-media artist, she suspects she may be a colorist. She considers herself a color theory nerd and can happily experiment and mix colors for days. She is fascinated by what she can create with limited palettes, how colors interact, and can be used to create unlimited effects within a painting. She’s incorporating more texture into her art and that is taking her in new directions. She believes our spaces may be more important to us as safe havens and places to express our true selves than ever before. Her passion is to help art lovers use original work as a meaningful way to express their unique personalities through their individual décor and style. She has a blast exploring color, shape, and texture in her studio to create expressive art that makes you feel uplifted, energized, and joyfully connected every time you walk by it!

Colleen Murphy, acrylic & mixed media paintings (EP2)

Murphy works in mixed media—primarily acrylic paint and collage—on both canvas and wood panels. The collage elements may appear as photographic, textural, or patterned images and shapes. She has explored a variety of themes over many years, but the overarching themes are architecture, interiors, and landscapes. They are all environments she is attracted to, both external and internal. Occasionally, there is a narrative she wants to communicate or a feeling she wants to express. Most times she follows her intuition as best she can, rather than overthink her process.

Gabriel Boray, oil paintings