Troutville artist Vera M. Dickerson has had one of her acrylic paintings selected as one of the 56 pieces for the Northwest Watercolor Society’s (NWWS) 78th annual International Open Exhibition.
Her painting will be on display from April 16 to June 1 at the Mercer View Gallery in the
Mercer Island Community Center in Mercer Island, Wash.
Dickerson entered her artwork titled “Daphne Confronts The Sphinx,” an acrylic painting on Yupo paper. She said it “reflects the centuries of time in which women have met with immovable bias and silence.”
The juror for the show is renowned artist Mark Mehaffey, an American Watercolor Society-Dolphin Fellow and National Watercolor Society Signature Member.
”It takes many views to be able to discern the sometimes subtle visual messages that artists include,” he said of the selection process. “Only being able to select 56 entries from the total 352 entries meant that many good paintings were not accepted.”
Other selected artists to be in the Open Exhibit are from 31 states and nine countries.
Dickerson said in 2016 she was invited to teach a painting workshop in Portland, Ore. at Portland Art Center. She spent a week getting to know a fine group of painters, she said. “That made me aware of a strong group of creative people in that part of the country and I have kept in touch with several since that visit.
“It was that experience which really made me aware of the Northwest Watercolor Society since my Portland host is a member. When the exhibit chairman, Debbie Roskofp, emailed in January and asked if I would consider submitting a painting for the competition, that gave me momentum to follow through,” Dickerson said.
“I was extremely pleased to have my painting selected and am truly honored to have it hang in such good company,” she continued. When she received the invitation to the opening and she found her painting is one of a dozen or so pictured on the invitation. “Another wow,” she said.
Dickerson holds a MFA in Painting and American Art History from American University and her work is in a number of corporate collections, including several in the Roanoke area.
She’s done a number of one-person shows, and has had her work on exhibit in a number of shows nationally, including at the National Museum of American Art at the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C. She’s won Best in Show in the Virginia Watercolor Society annual awards along with a number of others.
Her art has been included in a number of National Watercolor Society and Traveling Exhibits and American Watercolor Society Annual and Traveling Exhibits, and she has won a number of awards in those and other exhibits.
Dickerson is co-leader of Sketchbook Tours to Scotland, Ireland, Wales, France and Italy; and co-Founder of The Studio School Inc. in Roanoke.
She’s been included in “Who’s Who in American Art” since 1986 and “Who’s Who of American Women” since 2008.
She’s served twice as president of the Virginia Watercolor Society and is a Signature Member of the National Watercolor Society and the American Watercolor Society.
In 2004 she was commissioned by U.S. Forest Service to paint U.S. Capitol Holiday Tree.
She’s been featured twice in “Palette” magazine and in the “Art of Watercolor” magazine’s European edition.
She also participates as each fall in the Open Studios Botetourt Tour, and will again October 27 and 28 this year.
