The Artists
Lois DeWitt
 Untitled #4 Portal Series |
Artist Statement
I hold a BFA degree from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design and an MFA degree from Pratt Institute, NY where I attended on a full-tuition grant for graduate study. I was an art instructor at Orange County Community College in Middletown, NY and at the Brooklyn Friends School. I created and directed a rural ceramic workshop in upstate NY and taught wheel thrown and hand built ceramics to children and adults. After moving to Florida, I taught at the Miami Art Center and then became Supervisor of the North Miami Branch of the Metropolitan Museum.
Moving to Boston, I worked as secretary to the Director of the Smithsonian Archives of American Art and during that time launched Kidquilts and Capability, two enterprises creating colorful hand painted quilts for children and hand-sewn woolen capes that were sold in several Boston boutiques.
In western Massachusetts, I worked with a fashion designer for an apparel firm and produced line lists and fashion graphics on a CAD system. I renovated my old barn into a beautiful studio in Falls Village, CT and taught private classes in ceramics, painting, drawing and printmaking. For nine years I coordinated with the Sharon, CT Teen Center to produce the Sharon On The Green Arts and Crafts Fair, a thirty-year old annual event featuring over 150 juried artists and artisans.
During my two-year residency in Sarasota, FL, I wrote a cookbook for toaster ovens, entitled “Pop It In The Toaster Oven.” It is available on Amazon and most bookstores. Returning to Western Massachusetts, I began working in a lighting showroom--a position I thought would be temporary, but it turned into a position I held for four years, during which time I became a certified Lighting Specialist and a lighting consultant for clients.
I now live in Wilmington, NC and work part time in Lighting/Electrical at the Myrtle Grove Home Depot.
I exhibit my work at Lauren Clark Fine Art in western Massachusetts and Le Soleil in Carolina Beach, NC. Last year I completed a series of oil paintings and pastels of the Fort Fisher Historical area. My paintings and pastels can be seen on my website, as well as two children’s stories I recently wrote and illustrated. The website http://www.free-online-art-classes.com offers free online art classes in oil painting, acrylic painting, oil pastels, basic drawing, colored pencils, collage and discovering the artists within, as well as information on art travel, art tours, artful inspiration and creativity resources. Presently, I am creating a series of videos—in-depth, step by step, information-rich demonstrations of the various techniques and skills taught in the free online art classes.