Vermont Artists, Writers, Teachers
Are you artist, writer, teacher who would like to be listed here? Contact Dar or fill out our artist intake form
Joan Siegel Art
Stained glass, mosaics and quiltmaking
I have been both a quiltmaker and stained glass artist for over 20 years. I spend summers and part of the fall in Fayston, VT. My specialties include invitation boxes and Mitzvah scroll frames, which are perfect to showcase Bar / Bat Mitzvah and wedding invitations. Boxes and frames are custom made to fit your invitation perfectly. I also make T-shirt and Memorial quilts. Stained glass and mosaics can be purchased from Art in the Village gallery in Warren, VT. Please contact me for custom orders.
Email joans@taricgroup.com. My website is www.joansiegelart.com. Etsy shop is https://www.etsy.com/shop/clearlyartsyfartsy
Francine Pomerantz
Francine Pomerantz is a potter in Richmond Vermont. She love to play in the mud, whether in the pottery studio, her large vegetable garden and perennial beds. She finds inspiration in Vermont’s green mountains, her travels, friends and family. She does functional pottery as well as Raku and Judaica. Each of her pieces are unique, and either hand thrown on the wheel or hand built in her home studio. Custom work upon request.
Bringing People Together Through Arts and Illness
Experiencing illness since early childhood brought me many things. Not just the pain, isolation, and anxiety. It also made me resilient. Empathetic. Thoughtful. Creative.
Making art was always my favorite hobby, but as my life and illness progressed, it became a much-needed escape. I didn’t have the energy for socializing the way others did, but I could happily spend hours alone with my sketchpad.
While isolation is not always bad, I have learned as an adult the importance of community. I discovered chronic illness communities -- known as spoonies -- and was delighted in how many other spoonies have also turned to the arts! We may not be able to be together physically as much as we would like, but we often send one another the things we’ve created as a way to stay connected, show love, and find purpose.
My hope for this shop is twofold:
1. To be a platform for people with chronic illness to sell the beautiful things they create
2. To create a medium for connection between people with and without chronic illness
Selling the art that comes from illness can accomplish so much! It brings purpose and joy to those creating, who may not have other sources of income or other means for sharing their art. It combats the ableist and capitalistic notions that our lives are unproductive, bringing value (and no, I don’t just mean monetary!) to what we are able to contribute! After all, how many people throughout history, from Emily Dickinson to Stephen Hawking, were able to contribute so much to society because of, not despite, their illnesses?
Because we have stayed in silence for so long, most people without chronic illness have no idea what it’s like, and feel uncomfortable asking. I have begun creating art that, rather than just expressing me, expresses my chronic illness experience. I hope that creating beautiful, silly, whimsically ill art will help bridge that gap; not only will people be able to understand our experience more, but they will be able to purchase gifts for the spoonies in their lives that acknowledge illness, that open up conversations.
Feel free to reach out with questions or to request custom pieces! Thanks for being part of this much-needed movement.
With love and spoons,
Ariela https://www.etsy.com/shop/withloveandspoons
Judith Chalmer, Poet
Judith Chalmer’s second book of poems is “Minnow” (Kelsay Books 2020). Her poems have been published in journals such as “Lilith” (winner Newberger Prize) and “Poetica,” and “Gashmius,” and in anthologies such as “Roads Taken: Contemporary Vermont Poets” and “Queer Nature.” She is also co-translator of two books of haiku and tanka with Montpelier author, Michiko Oishi. She can be heard reading in recordings for Montpelier’s Poem City and for Vermont Humanities’ Words in the Woods series. In 2023 she attended the inaugural Yetzirah Jewish Poetry Conference as a scholar and is the organizer of a gathering of Jewish poets in Vermont inspired by that experience.
I am currently working a new crankie project entitled “Shterna & The Lost Voice” — featuring an original Yiddish folktale, an original live klezmer score written and performed by members of Mamaliga, and an exquisite paper cut crankie. This new collaboration is presented by The Magid Ensemble (magid, meaning storyteller in Yiddish) – a new collaboration featuring award-winning klezmer musicians and composers Mattias Kaufmann, Raffi Boden, and Rachel Leader (myself), Yiddishist and playwright AC Weaver, and crankie visual artist Kiah Raymond. The performance is geared to audiences of all ages - including children and families!
Joyce Kahn
JOYCE KAHN: Artist's Statement
An "art gene" is not a prerequisite for making art! I came to art in middle age and I came home. Art answered that perpetual anxiety-filled question for me, "What do you want to do when you grow up? During this exciting journey, I have learned that whatever you feed grows: success can be had through patience, perseverance, and practice. As a person who is gregarious yet relishes solitude, I enjoy painting by myself and with others. I love the challenge each time I begin a painting, whether landscape, still-life, portrait, or figure, and relish the meditative quality of how focused and involved I become in each work. My dedication to art has served me well in good times and bad. It has been my go-to during long days and nights during the pandemic, during illness, and during periods of grief. It is the process that is crucial, although I am always tickled when I receive positive feedback on the product.
Art to me is personal expression and self-discovery. It is capturing a moment in time and space and conveying the energy and emotions I feel through a visual record of that very personal experience. I can go anywhere in the world and record my impressions with just a notebook and a pen. But I am more of an expressionist/colorist. That is why soft pastels are my medium of choice: they are my eye candy. Through pastels, I try to imbue my paintings with the energy and aliveness that color represents for me. Painting outdoors or
"en plein air" was my passion for many years. All my senses become heightened when I work outside. The scents of early morning, the rapidly changing and expressive skies, the songs of the birds, and the ever-changing landscape due to time of day or season all feed my spirit and nurture my soul. During the pandemic, I took on the challenge of portraits, which have become a new passion. New passions bring new challenges, continued learning, new friends, and a new community of people. I feel blessed to have art play a major role in my life.
Joyce Kahn tallitot@gmail.com
Magic Circle Crochet Arts
Custom orders welcome! I’m Dar (Chandar) and I create animals, mandala’s and other colorful creations.
Dar Hall- https://www.magiccirclecrochetarts.com
https://www.facebook.com/magiccirclecrochetarts
https://www.instagram.com/magiccirclecrochetartsdiva/
https://www.etsy.com/shop/MagicCircleCA?ref=profile_header
Stella Ehrich, painter
Realist painter working in oils, pastels and charcoal
Before moving to Vermont, Stella lived in northern Tuscany for 16 years, studying drawing and painting in Florence with Nerina Simi for 7 years. She now lives and works in Shaftsbury , Vermont.
Ellie Roden Vermont pressed flowers
Ellie's pressed flower art features flowers of southern Vermont delicately arranged into unique designs. She uses only real flowers and plant materials in her original pieces. The flowers featured in Ellie's work come from her own gardens, from the woodlands and roadsides of Vermont and from the gardens of generous neighbors. Her work is available as cards, prints, bookmarks and framed originals.
Ellie Roden, longtime resident of southern Vermont, retired primary school teacher and avid flower gardener, has been creating art with pressed flowers for many years. She has always been intrigued with the beauty of flowers and sees pressing them as a way to preserve their beauty. Ellie is a self-taught pressed flowers artist who has honed her craft over years of trial and error and careful observation. Her work has been exhibited at shows and in galleries throughout New England and has been featured in two national publications. Ellie offers presentations and hands-on workshops to large and small groups.
Email: rodenora@gmail.com
Bertleberries - Creative Sewing and Designs
I make greeting cards by stitching fabric onto cardstock and these can be framed. My inspirations are nature, and some seasonally themed. I use some vintage linens and laces. I make whimsical items for children - felt hand puppets, tooth fairy pillows, a stuffed bear in a sleeping bag. I also make keepsake memorial items, from clothing of a deceased person. I will respectfully handle the item and reflect something in the work that speak of your loved one’s interest. In the past I have worked with a motif from a blouse of a woman who loved cardinals, another pillow had a tea cup from a nightgown. I make cross body messenger bags, flannel harem pants for infants, aprons, clothespin bags.
I have been sewing since I was knee high to a grasshopper and am now a youthful septuagenerian. I take pride in work and my customer’s satisfaction. Help me use up my fabric stash before my eyes give out!!!! My work is in several art museum gift shops in Vermont, a bookstore, a country market. I welcome these opportunities to market my work. I reside in Bennington and I do custom work.
Randi Solin
Randi uses glass like a contemporary abstract expressionist painter. She has been working in glass for over 30 years. Her work has been collected, shown, and exhibited throughout the world, including the permanent collection at the White House, nine U.S. Embassies, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Randi creates her signature glass artwork in her glassblowing arena at Fire Arts Vermont located on the West River in Brattleboro, Vermont.
Randi's website is www.randisolinglass.com
Diane Rippa
Fused glass artist from Essex, Vermont
Judaica including Menorahs, Mezuzot and candlesticks
Jewelry, bowls, garden art, wall panels
phone: 802-578-7111
email: drippa82@gmail.com
galleries: Art Hound in Essex, Vermont and Milton Artist Guild in Milton, Vermont
Jon Gailmor
Jon Gailmor was born in New York State and failed to grow up in Philadelphia and has called Vermont his home since 1977. He was honored as an “Extraordinary Vermonter” by our Governor, received the Mayor’s Peace Prize in Burlington, awarded a Silver Citation by the Vermont Arts Council, received the Ellen McCulloch Lovell award for Arts in Education and carried the Olympic Torch through Brattleboro in 1996. Jon sings and presents songwriting workshops and residencies, curriculum-based or open-ended, in schools nationwide, in which classes create original songs, both lyrics and music. He has performed in concert halls in Ecuador, a Peruvian tennis stadium, cafes in France, Italy and Greece and among the grapevines of European wine country. He has released seven recordings and is Town Moderator and proud resident of Elmore, Vermont. For more than you probably want to know about Jon Gailmor, feel free to visit Jon’s website at www.jongailmor.com
Modern Times Theater
Modern Times Theater has been making and touring puppet shows, variety acts, and novelty music, and creating public community events since 2007.
We pursue a radically divergent model of art making. If theater is a four-lane highway, we are off-roading in a buggy. We do not belong to one physical space, but believe in creating venues in unlikely locations, as well as revitalizing the historic, run-down, and defunct. We bring high-quality performances to people and places that have little or no access to live theater.
We make work in conversation with our environment and community, building shows and events in response to the needs and particular culture and possibilities found in our small rural region. And sometimes we take our work on the road, and experiment with what works in other contexts. We are old-fashioned entertainers, and also civically-minded artists who have defied the limits of categorization for more than a decade. https://moderntimestheater.com/
Topaz Weis
Topaz Weis, Registered Expressive Arts Consultant/Educator, wandered the world like her nomadic ancestors before finally settling in Vermont 20 years ago. As an Expressive Arts Consultant/Educator Topaz brands her work as “Profound Play.” She invites participants to engage their creativity and imagination by layering visual arts, movement, sound, writing and storytelling with thematic material. Topaz works with individuals, couples, organizations and businesses helping people destress, find their creative spark and build innovation into their lives. https://expressiveartsburlington.com/
Marion Usher
For the past 25 years I have been involved with interfaith couples and families. My workshop model, “Love and Religion; a Workshop for Jews and Their Partners” has been adopted by many clergy and Jewish communal workers in the US and Canada. In these workshops couples can co-create their religious life together. My experiences led me to write “One Couple Two Faiths: Stories of Love and Religion,” a primer for interfaith couples and families. My book is available on Amazon.com.
During the summer I live in Waitsfield and would be delighted to share my work with any of the synagogues, havurahs and collective groups here in Vermont. My topics focus on the interfaith couples themselves, interfaith parents raising their children, and the importance of grandparents in the transmission of Judaism to their grandchildren. www.JewishInterfaithCouples.com