River Gallery School

Jason is a teacher in the adult program, has a BFA in Painting from Boston University School for the Arts. He has taught Middle School mural painting in Boston for three years. He has drawn from the figure for 15 years and organizes a quarterly Life Drawing Marathon at the River Gallery School. He teaches the adult Life Drawing and Painting Classes.

Susan has run Otter Pond Bindery in Guilford for the 13 years. She studied with Paulus Berensohn, Julie Chen, Daniel Kelm, Claire Van Vliet, Hedi Kyle, Linda Lembke, and at the Center for Book Arts in NYC and the North Bennett Street School in Boston. Three of her journal pages appeared in Dawn Sokol’s 1000 Artist Journal Pages (Quarry Books, 2008). A 12-year retrospective of her work opened at Gallery 215 in Brattleboro, Vermont in October 2009. In 2008-2009 she collaborated with Australian artist Ilona Lasmanis to produce a limited edition book called “Backyard Magpies”. Her work was selected to be part of the 2nd and 3rd San Diego National Juried Book Arts Shows in 2008 and 2010. Visit Susan's Website

Marilyn Allen began painting in 1995 with Ric Campman of the River Gallery School.  Since then she has also studied with Vermont artists, Arrin Fancher and David Brewster, as well as Jim Peters at the Fine Arts Work Center.  She has shown her work in numerous local venues as well as in Massachusetts and Beacon, New York. Her work is in private collections throughout New England and New York.

Kim Hartman Colligan received her MFA in Printmaking from the University of South Dakota. Kim served as studio assistant and printmaker to the renowned colorfield painter Jules Olitski for several years. She brings a dynamic and exciting curriculum in printmaking to River Gallery School. She has shown her work widely throughout both New England and the upper Midwest, and is included in many permanent collections. Her work is on view for the month of November at the Edward Jones office building at 51 Main Street, Brattleboro. Visit Kim's website

Madeline  loves to draw with kids!  She worked on many animated movies including Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile, Mike Mulligan and His Steamshovel.  In addition, she has made commercials for Cartoon Network and worked with many big stars including the casts of Scooby Doo, The Bugs Bunny and Roadrunner Show, Tom and Jerry, Johnny Bravo, and the Power Puff Girls.  She has worked with kids and taught cartooning with kids in Georgia and Vermont.

Donna C Hawes is the Administrative Director and energetic pulse of the River Gallery School.  She received her BFA from Auburn University and has been working in the field of graphic design, illustration and book making for over 25 years. She has taught numerous workshops on book binding/book arts through the River Gallery School.

Barbara Merfeld-Campman has trained and exhibited widely as an artist, both in the US and abroad.  She co-founded River Gallery School, and now teaches Art and Meditation as well as heads the Children's Studio art program.  She has been teaching art for 35 years.

Matthew Peake is a family physician of 24 years who gave up his practice in
2006 to pursue an art career full time. Both with medicine and in art,
people have been his inspiration. Although  moved by the natural places that we sentient beings discover, cultivate or trod on, he loves more to paint us in these settings.

Having never been able to decide whether I prefer botanical watercolors over the looser brushwork and freedoms of oil painting, I am obliged to go back and forth between the two. Both mediums make their unique demands: the watercolors -- especially the botanical watercolors-- require precise drawing and careful planning whereas the oils demand more attention to tonal values, brushwork, and color harmony. In either medium, I’m a slave to composition. 

Helen Schmidt, has been at The River Gallery School for the last twelve years, and is currently teaching printmaking, assemblage, teen portfolio, children and adult studio classes. She studied at Sarah Lawrence College, Lacoste School for the Arts, The Museum School, and Vermont College at Norwich University, where she received her MFA. She has taught and shown her work locally for the last 16 years. Her teaching experience includes Hilltop Montessori School, The Putney School, Great River Arts, and Small Barn Arts. She has exhibited work at Windham Art Gallery, Gallery in the woods, T.W. Wood Gallery, The Michael S. Currier Center, The Sarah Lawrence Art Gallery, and Putney and Westminster West annual artists exhibitions. She lives with her husband and two daughters in Westminster West.

Ross Smart is a local artist and illustrator, who has been drawing and teaching drawing for 20 years. His whimsical work can be seen at www.rosstsmart.com.

A Northwest native, Ezra now calls Brattleboro home.  He is an avid enthusiast of creating connections between discarded construction materials, then dismantling them and exploring their internal workings.  At this time Ezra is pursuing his Masters of Fine Arts degree and raising two beautiful children.

Megan, outdoor enthusiast and mother of two young children, has a background in Montessori education. She has worked extensively in the area teaching children and young adults.

Lydia Thomson, Creative Director, has been teaching in the adult program at RGS since 1994.  She received her BA in Studio Art, and also holds an MS in Education. She works mainly in oils and mixed media, landscapes and abstraction, and has exhibited throughout New England and New York.  Visit Lydia's website

The description of "compulsive artist" used by my early teachers  has been with me for my lifetime. After environmental studies at Cornell and architecture at U. Minnesota, I became an environmental designer and freelance fine art illustrator. Until recently, I had been living aboard "Murmur" cruising the eastern seaboard of the United States with my wife Christina and our German Shepherd co-captain Mack. We have now combined our experience with a "home base" on the Eastern Shore of Virginia. My work remains focused on fine art with an emphasis on contemporary realism created in the spirit of old world craftsmanship. The themes are coastal life and traditions, maritime in nature, and the technique is classic egg tempera.

Julia Zanes is an artist living in Saxton's River with her husband Donald Saaf and sons Isak and Olaf. For the past twenty years she has been showing her work in New England at The Clark Gallery in Lincoln, MA, The Spheris Gallery in Hanover, The George Marshall Store Gallery in York ME, and The Catherine Dianich Gallery in Brattleboro, among others. She attended The Art Institute of Chicago.  Visit Julia's website