Van Vliet Arts

Karla Van Vliet

Whether I am writing, painting, or creating jewelry I face the same puzzle. It involves the question of placement and the creation of an architecture. The architecture must hold in place the juxtaposition of image, color, word, or shape. As I explore these different genres I realize time after time how each informs the other. That as I choose color and pattern in making a necklace I am sharpening the tool I use for choosing words and patterns in a poem. As I lay down images in a painting I am using the tool for which in poetry I place images on the page within a poem.

Sometime the genres blend into each other.  In 2005 I worked on a collection of brush paintings containing poems I wrote in Chinese and translated into English. I do not speak Chinese but I am fascinated by the often poetic layering of images which make-up Kanji characters.

My Chinese signature is taken from the meaning of my own name. ??? stands for river, woman, oath. I picked Kanji characters based on their full meanings. This character for woman ? also means earth, and the character I chose for oath ? has the characters of sun and moon within it. So, imbedded in my signature is river, earth, sun and moon. My red seal is a carving of these three characters.

In my most recent paintings I have moved from ink on rice paper to acrylic on paper or canvas.  I followed my need for a larger work area and my interest in exploring color in my paintings.

In these new paintings I see images rise up from my poems and find their place on the canvas.  In my poems I often describe an interior landscape with the language of my exterior landscape, that of st1:State w:st="on">Vermont.  As a 7th generation Vermonter, the Vermont landscape is in my blood.  In my paintings I see this blending of interior and exterior landscapes most clearly in the paintings of women, the land or image with in their bodies.

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After attending Bennington College, I finished my BA at Goddard College. I received my MFA in Poetry from Vermont College.  I have published poems in Painted Bride Quarterly, Poet Lore, The Dry Creek Review, and Many Mountains Moving, among other journals. Over the last several years I have begun to show my paintings and jewelry in Vermont galleries and boutiques. I am the recent recipient of a Vermont Arts Endowment Fund Grant.

After living in places as far flung as Oregon, Maine, North Carolina, and Ireland I settled in Bristol, Vermont the town in which I grew up.  

Please enjoy exploring this site. Feel free to contact me with questions or observations.

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Writing Credentials:

o       Administrative Coordinator / Admissions Director - New England Young Writers’ Conference at Bread Loaf– 1998-Present 

o       Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference – Attended summers of 2001, 2003, 2004, 2005

o       Bread Loaf Admissions Board – 2003, 2004, 2005

o       Reader for New England Review – 2003- 2005

o       Poet in Residence – Willowell Foundation – Walden Project 2001-2002

o       Creative Writing Mentor – Johnson Sate College – 2000-2002

o       Spring St. Poets – Founding member of writers’ group.

o       Readings – Numerous readings in the Champlain Valley, Vermont, Montreal, Canada.

o       Instruction – Led Writing Workshop for six years. Work with students independently.

Work Published in:

o       Poet Lore, Painted Bride Quarterly, Crying Sky, Avocet, The Dry Creek Review, Many Mountains Moving, Eleventh Muse, Plainsongs, Ship of Fools.

Art Credentials:

Solo Exhibitions:

o       In House Concert in Grand Isle, Grand Isle, VT – March 2006

o       Featured Artist, Great Falls Club, Middlebury, VT – August 2005

o       Featured Artist, Human Hand, Ferrisburg, VT – June 2005

o       Bobcat Café, Bristol, VT – March & April 2005

o       Tully and Marie’s, Middlebury, VT – November & December 2004

o       Main Street Cabot, Cabot, VT – September 2004

o       Featured Artist, Art on Main, Bristol, VT – July 2004

o       Bristol Bakery, Bristol, VT – 1998          

o       Woody’s Restaurant, Middlebury, VT – 1997

Selected Group Exhibitions:

o       Yinglei Zhang & Students, Ilsley Public Library, Middlebury, VT  -  2003

o       Yinglei Zhang & Students, Lincoln Public Library, Lincoln, VT   -  2002

Gallery Representation:

o       Green Mountain Fine Art Gallery, Stowe, VT

o       Art On Main, Bristol, VT

o       Human Hand, Ferrisburg, VT

o       Great Falls Club, Middlebury, VT

Grants:          

o         Vermont Community Foundation: Artist’s Grant, 2004-2005

Donations:

o       Addison County Hospice Art Auction, Basin Harbor Club, Verg., VT 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006.

o       Burlington City Arts Art Auction, Burlington, VT 2004.