JOHNSON, VT: The Canasta Press brings together four friends who have known each other for years, playing cards together, and now make monoprints on the same press. Isabeth B. Hardy, owner of the Painted Caravan, Louise von Weise, co-founder of the Vermont Studio Center, have known each other since they were six years old in San Antonio Tx. Marcie Vallette, graphic designer, from Massachusetts, and Mickey Myers, Bryan Gallery Director, from California, came to the Vermont Studio Center as residents in 1989. Subsequently, a friendship developed among the four women which included hiking, painting, sculpting and socializing in an artistically charged atmosphere.

Each of the artists found themselves comfortable with giving and accepting critiques of each others artwork, a rare gift among serious artists.

The idea for the Canasta Press developed during a canasta card game, after the four artists took a course in monoprintmaking from Barbara Molloy at Johnson State College in 2003. The four artist-card players wanted to keep making prints together after the class was over, and with the arrival of the Whelan Press at Hardy's studio in Johnson in 2005, the Canasta Press was named.

The Canasta Press is located adjacent to The Painted Caravan Gallery, and all four artists are residents of Johnson, Vermont.

Join us in celebrating the prints, paintings, and drawings of these talented women at the Artist s Reception.

The Painted Caravan is located 1.2 miles west from the center of Johnson on route 15.

802-635-1700

- Bradley Fox, Gallery Director, The Painted Caravan