Lois grew up in Tulsa, Oklahoma. She spent her childhood summers on an island in northwestern Ontario, Canada. It was on that island, contemplating vast sky over expanses of water, far from the mainland and “civilization,” that her first profound experience of nature, and questions about what "nature" is, occurred.
She moved to northern Vermont in 1969, and lived there until moving to central Vermont in 2015. Her work is at West Branch Gallery & Sculpture Park in Stowe, VT, and online at The Painting Center of New York’s Juried Art File. Originally she studied still life and landscape painting, but eventually she felt the need to push in a different direction. When working from observation, she felt too “outside” nature, and wanted to find a way to work from within. This impulse led her to explore the meaning of the calligraphic line, of open space interacting with color, and of improvisation.
In addition to exhibitions of her work, Lois has contributed drawings and paintings to books, magazines, CDs and a DVD. 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 bio other than exhibitions and print media follows.
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 - 2001 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
2002 - 2007 Board of Trustees, The Helen Day Art Center, Stowe, VT
May 2006 Visiting Artist. Vermont Week at the Vermont Studio Center, Johnson,Vermont 2009 Six digital prints created for The Institute of HeartMath of Boulder Creek, CA. 2009 to 2015 - Board of Trustees, GRACE (Grass Roots Art and Community Effort), Hardwick, 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.