The risk-taking artistry of former faculty member Marcia Reed
Having taught art for 35 years at Williston, Marcia Reed—beloved by countless Wildcats—retired in 2012. It may have been a risk to leave a familiar environment after all that time, but, as Reed notes, she’s not afraid to mix things up. She moved to Delaware and launched a new career, opening Gallery 37: A Destination for Artful Living, representing 60 artists, from potters to printmakers to painters, in the picturesque river town of Milford, once a shipbuilding center. She continues to lead painting-focused trips abroad (Williston alumni sometimes join her) to locations such as Istanbul, Sardinia, Sicily, France, and the Virgin Islands. And in March of 2019, she grew bored of what she was painting and decided to completely shift her approach, abandoning landscapes for stylized, colorful abstractions.
Those risks have brought a reward. Her alma mater, the University of Massachusetts, Amherst (she earned her B.F.A. and M.F.A. there), asked her to be one of 15 alumni featured in a new juried show, Sun to Cement, at Herter Gallery this spring.
Reed was on hand at the opening, March 5, and participated in a panel discussing the work, which was on display through March 26.
“I’m now back in a place where it is more fun to paint,” she noted. “So to have my new work selected to be in this group show is really exciting.”