Liza Myers returns to Sudbury and the Brandon Artists Guild

Written by Steven Jupiter for the Brandon Reporter

“It feels good to be back,” she said.  

Myers and her husband, Jim, had been in New Mexico for eight years, caring for Myers’s ailing uncle on top of some of her own recent health challenges.  A founding member of the Brandon Artists Guild (BAG), a longtime resident of Sudbury, and a fixture as the art teacher at Lothrop Elementary, Myers has returned to a community where she has deep ties and enduring friendships.  

As if any proof were needed, she was enthusiastically greeted by three different couples who happened to stroll by as she sat outside the BAG on a recent Sunday morning.  Having moved to Sudbury with Jim in 1988 and taught art at Lothrop for 19 years, she’s known this community for decades and it was happy to have her back.

Her path to Vermont was not a straight line.  Born in Maryland, she spent her childhood in constant motion, as her father sought to use his skills as an engineer to improve conditions in Latin America.

“He wanted to make the world a better place through technology,” Myers said.  

The family lived in Mexico, Colombia, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Nicaragua.  She attended a Quaker school in Pennsylvania and then began university in Colombia.  After a semester, she transferred to the College of Santa Fe in New Mexico.  She left school for a bit to elope with her first husband, Bruce, and live out in the desert near Taos, which began a lifelong love affair with the American Southwest.

During that time—in the mid 1970s—she’d hitchhike to classes at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, where she studied art and biology.  She was soon offered a job teaching art in Paraguay and off she went, setting up a ceramic studio to teach pottery.

“I’m still in touch with those kids,” said Myers.

After three years in Paraguay, she was back at UNM, where she finished her degree with honors.  After another year in Paraguay, she got a fellowship in ceramic sculpture at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore.  She taught art at a number of schools in Maryland, got divorced, and moved to Vermont in 1984 because her brother had a place in Shelburne.

Her first job in Vermont was teaching art in West Rutland.  She lived in Hydeville, a tiny hamlet at the southern end of Lake Bomoseen.  After 2 years, she left Vermont for a job at the Purnell School in New Jersey.  Two weeks before she left for New Jersey, though, she met her husband of 30 years.  They were apart for only one year, though, as she came back to Vermont in 1988 and they built a house in Sudbury that they still live in.

They settled in and became fixtures in the community.  Liza began a 19-year tenure teaching art at Lothrop - “I influenced a generation of Pittsford kids” - and started making the connections that would eventually lead to the creation of the BAG in 2002-03.

“The Guild was really Warren’s project,” Myers said, referring to esteemed artist Warren Kimble, who’s been based in Brandon for decades. “There were a lot of other people who helped, but Warren got us together.  His perseverance kept it going.”

Brandon went through a stage in the latter half of the 20th century in which it was seen by surrounding communities as a little rough around the edges.  But by the early aughts, Brandon was experiencing one of its periodic “renaissances” in which folks seem to realize all the upsides to the town and begin reinvesting in the place.  

One of the BAG’s earliest triumphs was the famed Pig Parade in 2003, a fundraiser for the nascent organization in which artists painted, paraded, and auctioned off 30 sculptures of pigs.  Myers’s own pig, a winged beast named “Esperanza,” fetched $3,500.  The auction brought in enough money for the BAG to buy and renovate the building it still occupies on Center Street.  

“The kids at Lothrop made pig masks and marched in the parade,” Myers laughed.  

Myers’s pig was fairly typical of her work, a mixture of realism and fantasy that Myers calls “Visionary Realism,” which seems to have much in common with the Magical Realism of Latin America, where she’s spent so much time.  Her paintings capture something spiritual about nature, and while her scenes are rendered with great realism and attention to detail, they are clearly meant to depict visions rather than reality.

“There’s a very spiritual component to the natural world,” said Myers.  “It’s replenishing, rejuvenating. I love the itty bitty details…the edges of a petal.”

Ravens are a favorite motif.  

“They’re mysterious,” she said of the black-feathered creatures, as she explained the difference between crows and ravens.  “Birds connect us all.  Their migratory paths link all parts of the world, and when something disrupts the birds in one place, it has consequences somewhere else.”

In addition to all of her visual endeavors, Myers is also a musician.  She has been in a band called Sleeping Dogs (“Taconic rockabilly”) for years and composed several ecologically themed musicals for kids back in the 1990s.  She sang a few excerpts in a sweet, clear voice, including a short burst of rap.

Meanwhile, Myers’s home in Sudbury is undergoing renovation and her studio isn’t yet functional, but she’ll be back to making art soon.  She has to.  It’s simply what she does.

“I don’t sleep if I don’t make art.”

Artist of the Month - Mike Mayone

Vermont Fine Artist

I’ve been creating artwork in various forms throughout my life.  In my pre-teens, I started drawing comics and sketching ideas and inventions.  Beginning in my later teens, I designed and painted signs and custom illustration and portraiture for hire.  Around that time, when I painted for the fun of it, I gave the work as gifts to family and close friends.  But with each new piece, I taught myself something more and learned from my experience, ultimately relying on those observations to refine my abilities.

Sometimes it takes a life-changing event to make us reassess how we live our lives and what emphasis we place on our different skills and needs.  At age 28, I found myself at that crossroads and discovered that my love of nature could help me cope with traumatic change and find the strength to continue on my path ahead.  For the first time in this life, my spirituality took form and matured into an understanding of past visions and distant memories, all bolstered by my appreciation for the beauty and sheer awe of the natural world.  It seemed natural to channel my newfound sense of peace in my art.

Back then, I lived in Connecticut, but had visited Vermont since childhood for skiing, camping, and other outdoor activities… and I have always loved the state.  After getting married in 1991, my wife and I moved to Rochester, VT the very day the local Artists Guild opened its doors.  There, I first began selling work on consignment and eventually became an integral part of the team, establishing Mike Mayone Fine Art that same year.  Even after moving over the mountain and buying property in East Middlebury a year later, I continued working with the Rochester guild until it eventually closed.

In 1998, I completed my new art studio above my garage – and I’m still there (although the marriage isn’t).  I’ve been an artist member here at the Brandon Artists Guild since 2003, appreciating the great comradery, the high quality of work on display, the sales and the incentive to keep creating work for our gallery.  I continue to teach myself something with every new painting or drawing I produce, while also teaching my students to enjoy doing the same.

One of the greatest compliments I’ve received was from a customer who explained that after the 9-11 tragedy in 2001, it was only my notecards that she mailed to New York City friends deeply affected by the disaster.  She wanted to share the peacefulness of my paintings. 

It’s not often that a compliment will choke me up, but that one certainly did.

A favorite bumper sticker I’ve seen reads, “Moonlight in Vermont… or starve”

So yeah, in addition to painting, I’ve had part-time work, off and on, throughout the years.  It helps balance life and provide some stable income.  I’m still an on-call, volunteer firefighter (43 years, 30 of them with the Middlebury Fire Dept.), work security at the Middlebury College Museum of Art (LOTS of inspiration!) and have too many other distractions.  But when painting or teaching others to paint, the time just flies by… clearly, a natural indication of my love for what I do.

Artist of the Month - Muffy Kashkin Grollier

Tell us a bit about yourself.

I was born and grew up in a family of six children, in Massachusetts. I moved to Vermont as a young adult and have lived here for nearly fifty years.

My husband is a French chef. We live in a large old farmhouse in Orwell with our cat and two Golden Retrievers. We have chickens and a goose. I work with children during the week and fit my art into every free moment I can. My husband and I love gardening and we have large gardens of flowers, vegetables, and medicinal and culinary herbs.

I believe in fairies and magical entities and leave plenty of wild places for them to live and play!

Are you a full-time artist? If not, how do you tend to make time for your art practice?

In my heart and soul, yes. I am a full time Early Childhood Educator and a licensed Preschool teacher. I own and operate a private program in my home year-round. I am able to spend evenings, breaks, and weekends working on my art. Art is a fundamental part of my program’s curriculum so I can join the children with their art activities, stimulating ideas for my own projects.

Tell us about your earlier encounters with art and creating. Where or when did your creativity begin?

I have been an artist all my life. I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t doing something creative! I began oil painting around age two. My mother would lie down on her bed with me at nap time. Usually, I would sit and babble while my mother napped. One day, as my mother slept, I explored her nightstand. To my delight I found a tube of black paint. I painted the bed, the pillows, and blankets and of course, my mother!

My mother was a talented artist and my most supportive teacher and mentor. My mother and grandmother taught me to sew, knit, crochet, and embroidery. I made my doll clothes and graduated to making my own clothes and later artwork. We lived a very creative and imaginative life.

When I learned to read and write I would write and illustrate poetry. I continued to write throughout my life and eventually published “Gregory, Gregory Hates His Food”.

How did you learn the skill you have now?

I learned a great deal from my mother. She was an oil painter. She was also a master calligraphist and lettered diplomas for a college in Springfield, MA.

In elementary school, I was chosen to take special art classes for the gifted, and was introduced to a variety of mediums.

Over ten years ago, I took a class in needlefelting three-dimensional characters. I later took a class in two-dimensional felting, discovering the joys of “painting with wool”. The techniques I learned with watercolor and pastel made my paintings come to life, adding character to my subjects, and depth to my colors.

I love to learn new techniques and often take classes just to stretch my artistic experiences and knowledge.

What medium(s) do you tend to work in now? What draws you to them?

My primary medium is wool since I specialize in needlefelting. I like the textural feel of fiber; it’s like the living spirit of the sheep is in the fiber and helps to bring the painting alive. Similar to pastels, you layer color over color so that when you needle them in, the color underneath enriches the color on top. It is a lengthy process, almost like meditation, when I am working on a piece. I use a barbed needle that locks the fibers into felt after continuous stabbing. To create art from the fibers of an animal with a little barbed needle is magical.

Although needlefelting is my primary medium, I continue to play with watercolors, gauche, acrylics and any other medium that suits my fancy!

We would love to hear about where your art happened. Some artists work from home, others have a dedicated studio. Where do you tend to carve out space for your work?

I tend to create on my living-room couch while watching movies. My art is very mobile, and I can work most anywhere. However, my whole house is storage for my art supplies.

What are your biggest inspirations? Where do your ideas come from?

Everything! I am inspired by nature, other artists, new techniques, and the wanderings of my mind. I photograph animals, plants, landscapes and buildings that I would like to paint as well as pictures of other artists’ work. I have notebooks full of ideas for inspiration.

I’m also inspired by art materials. Something new will inspire me to try something new!

What are you hoping to explore next with your art? Any new ideas, mediums, or projects?

I have notebooks of photographs I have taken that I want to paint. I want to do a barn series, more fantasy pictures, illustrate more of my stories, more flower paintings and many, many more.

Pros and Cons of your creative lifestyle?

I have a racing mind. Innumerable thoughts and images pass through my mind. It quiets and focusses when I am engaged in creating my art. Art is a positive addiction that is only satisfied when I create with my hands, my mind and my heart.

Where can someone find your art?

In my home in Orwell, Vermont.

In the Brandon Artists Guild gallery.

At Vermont Hand Crafters.

Instagram: Muffy Kashkin Grollier

Facebook: Muffy Kashkin Grollier 

Website: muffykg.com (but I must admit that I don’t know much about maintaining a website and it needs updating!)