Lois Eby: Biography

A series of nightmares and dreams in her late 20s and early 30s led Lois Eby to the study of drawing and painting . The effect of the dreams wasn't to paint dreams, or to use painting to work something out. Dreams and nightmares gave her insight and direction toward a more whole self, a self who she discovered loved visual art. She has been painting ever since.

Her experience of dreams convinced her of a psyche or energy larger than our conscious mind and in that way contributed to her sense of the mystery that life is, and of life's always changing possibilities, changing from what the conscious mind knows or expects.

Feelings of dissatisfaction with the Western realist tradition, also accompanied by dreams, led her eventually to abstract, improvisational painting and its great, seemingly lifelong, challenges.

Eby grew up in Tulsa, Oklahoma. She spent her childhood summers on an island in northwestern Ontario, Canada. It was on that island far from the mainland that her first profound experience of nature, and questions about what "nature" is, occurred.

Lois lives in northern Vermont where her studio is attached to her home. Her work is at West Branch Gallery & Sculpture Park in Stowe, VT, and can be seen at Tamarack Gallery in East Craftsbury, VT, during the summer. She is also a juried member of the Gallery on the Green in Shelburne, VT.

In addition to exhibitions of her work, Lois has contributed drawings and paintings to books, magazines and a CD. Her work is in a variety of public and private collections. She has also been a commentator on the arts, women's issues, and civil rights for Vermont Public Radio. Information about her activities other than exhibitions follows.

Work for Print and Audio


  • Inquiring Mind: A semiannual journal of the vipassana community. Fall 2006. Three paintings reproduced in this issue the focus of which is Freedom. Berkeley, CA.

  • "WILLIAM PARKER QUARTET: Sound Unity" (AUM034). AUM Fidelity, Brooklyn, NY, 2005. Paintings featured on Booklet and Tray Card. For more go to: http://www.aumfidelity.com/home.htm.

  • America Zen: A Gathering of Poets. Ed. with an Introduction by Larry Smith and Ray McNiece. "Enso" on Title Page and Back Cover. Huron, Ohio: Bottom Dog Press, 2004.

  • Mayor of Punkville. William Parker & the Little Huey Creative Music Orchestra. CD from AUM Fidelity, Brooklyn, NY, 2000. Three paintings featured on Booklet and Tray Card. For more go to: http://www.aumfidelity.com/aum015.html

  • Swords that Shall Not Strike: Poems of Politics and Rebellion, by Kenneth Rexroth. Geoffrey Gardner, ed. Cover Drawing. Thetford, Vermont: Glad Day Press, 1999. For more go to: http://www.gladdaybooks.com/swords.htm

  • Vermont Life Magazine, winter 1991-92, summer l993, pen and ink drawings

  • Why I Came to Judevine, by David Budbill, 1987, White Pine Press, 76 Center Street, Fredonia, NY, 14063. For more go to: http://www.davidbudbill.com/yicame.html

  • Kindling, an anthology of poems from Vermont Gatherings, l987, Montpelier, VT.

  • The Horses of Time, by Jules Supervielle, Geoffrey Gardner, trans., 1985, Tamarack Editions, 131 Fellows Avenue, Syracuse, New York, 13210.

  • From Down to the Village, by David Budbill, l98l, The Ark, 35 Highland Avenue, Cambridge, MA, 02139. For more go to: http://www.davidbudbill.com/vill.html

  • Pulp Cutters' Nativity, by David Budbill, 1981, Countryman Press, Box 175, Woodstock, VT, 05091. For more go to: http://www.davidbudbill.com/pulp.html

  • The Chain Saw Dance, by David Budbill, 1977, Countryman Press, Box l75, Woodstock, VT, 05091. For more go to: http://www.davidbudbill.com/chain.html

    • Collections

  • Vermont State Art Collection
  • Mac-Gray Corporation, Waltham, MA
  • The Jazz Museum, New York, New York. For more go to: http://www.jazzmuseuminharlem.org
  • Paterson Collection, Barre, VT
  • Mark Waskow Collection, Burlington, VT
  • Copley Hospital Collection, Morrisville, VT
  • private collections from New York, Vermont, California and other states to Germany

    • Online Juried Listings

  • The Painting Center Art File. The Painting Center, 52 Greene Street, New York. www.thepaintingcenter.com

    • Gallery Affiliation

  • West Branch Sculpture Park & Art Gallery. Stowe, Vermont

    • Biographical Detail

    Education

    1962 Duke University, B.A., English Literature
    1964 Columbia University, M.A., twentieth century literature and religion

    Teaching

    1967 - l969 Lincoln University, Oxford, PA, humanities
    1970 - 1974 The Stowe School, Stowe, VT, literature and learning disabilities specialist
    1974 - 1980 Writing, Community College of Vermont
    1984 - 1999 Drawing and Painting, Community College of Vermont
    1990 - 2000 Artist in Residence, Out and About, a day program for adults in Morrisville
    1994 - 2002 Studio Art and Art History Studies, Adult Degree Program, Vermont College of The Union Institute
    2002 - Artist-Teacher in the MFA in Visual Arts Program, Vermont College of the Union Institute and University

    Other activities

    1998 - Commentator for Vermont Public Radio, with particular interest in the arts, civil rights, and women's issues
    1999-2003 Speaker for the Vermont Council on the Humanities' Speakers Bureau
    2000-2008 Juried Artist Register of the Vermont Arts Council
    2003 - Board of Trustees, The Helen Day Art Center, Stowe, VT
    2006 - Visiting Artist. Vermont Week at the Vermont Studio Center, May 2006, Johnson, Vermont.

    Grants and Honors

    1999 Vermont Arts Council Opportunity Grant to support the creation of a series of new paintings

    2004 "Dancing 'round the 10,000th thing," mixed media on paper, selected by the Vermont Arts Council to be one of six works produced in a limited edition of giclee prints as a part of the Council's 40th Anniversary Celebration.

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    Copyright ©2007 Lois Eby

    updated: 8/4/2007