Artist Statement

A collective of Spanish artists in Barcelona developed the term “poellage” in 1916, to describe “the fusion of words and paper through the collage technique.” I use the term to describe works that combine a poem and collage.

I have created 16 poellages in a series that combine memoir poems about my first five years of life with collages. This memoir is titled “The Family Star.” A couple of additional poellages included in this exhibit begin the next section of the memoir – Middle Years. I also include a few collages that are part of a series about women’s lives.

Early in my visual arts life, I made large abstracted landscapes in oils. Over the last 20 years I have created mono-prints, and have spent one to two weeks per year at the Fine Arts Work Center using their printmaking studio. In the last four years I have also been creating collages, 14 of which were on display in a one-woman show at the Kellogg Hubbard Library for the month of May 2023. Most recently I have also been making poellages. My one-woman show at The Drawing Board in Montpelier during the month of March 2024 was comprised of four of the poellages exhibited here, plus some monoprints and other collages.

Artist Bio

I grew up in Pittsburgh, PA, graduated from Goddard College's Adult Degree Program, and then received my Juris Doctor degree from the University of San Diego School of Law. I practiced law in New Hampshire and Vermont and taught at Vermont Law School, Dartmouth College, and other universities before becoming an organizational consultant with a focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion. Until I retired in 2022, I consulted to for-profit and not-for-profit clients around the world, and, at times, served as an in-house executive. From 2015 to 2020 I worked at The Nature Conservancy, the largest conservation organization in the world, as their first Chief Diversity Officer and then Special Advisor to the CEO.

I have written poetry since childhood. I am published in small literary magazines, several anthologies, and Poem City Montpelier, VT. In my early 40s, I began painting and printmaking while continuing to write. I have studied both mediums with teachers in the Boston area, at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, MA, and the Truro Center for the Arts in Truro, MA. I have lived in Vermont off and on since the late 70s. Most recently, in June of 2023, my spouse, Susan, and I moved from Montpelier to Woodstock Village. I am now a full-time artist and poet.