30A | september 28-october 05, 2005 | SEVEN DAYS
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Rescued Retrospective Salvaging Lois Foley’s long-neglected legacy
ost of the many visitors who have seen the Lois Foley retrospective, now on display in Burlington’s South End, heard about it by word of mouth. Curator Jim Dickerson didn’t take out STORY any ads or send any postcards to proCATHY mote the event, which opened during RESMER the Art Hop on September 9. In fact, the show is literally an underground IMAGE affair: Hundreds of the late artist’s artMATTHEW works are hanging on walls and stacked THORSEN on tables in a large basement office off Flynn Avenue. But the story of how the Lois Foley, pieces got there, after having nearly a retrospective. been abandoned, is remarkable. Copley Foley, who died of heart failure in Consolidated, 2000, was an uncommonly talented 208 Flynn Avenue, and hard-working artist. Born in Burlington. Groton, Vermont, in 1937, she spent Through October. the last three decades of her life living and working in a farmhouse in Essex Junction, and teaching at schools such as Johnson State College and the University of Vermont. But her influence and experience extended far beyond the Green Mountain State. Foley studied drawing and painting at art programs in Connecticut and New York, including the Art Students League in Manhattan. During a career that lasted roughly half a century, she mounted more than 100 solo and group shows in galleries around the world. In 1995, she was one of just four American artists to show work in the “50 Years Later” exhibit at the concentration camp in Dachau, Germany. Foley was also an activist. She belonged to the Women’s Caucus for Art, serving as the Burlington chapter president from 1985 to ’87, and she produced intricate woodcuts for the anti-nuke movement.
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She was the kind of woman whom acquaintances often describe as “a character.” Friends tell numerous stories about her, but they often preface them with the caution, “Don’t print this.” Burlington artist Anne Bemis, who knew her well, says her friend was a dynamic individual. “She would take over the conversation,” Bemis recalls. “She would take over the room.” Bemis also says Foley actively pursued her own growth as an artist. “She was not a small-minded person. She worked relentlessly. She challenged herself. She grew more as an artist, hands
parallelograms. “It was a real revelation to me,” says painter Gail Salzman, who met Foley in the 1980s. “It’s exciting to see how prolific she was.” A life-drawing teacher at Community College of Vermont, Salzman plans to bring her students on a field trip to the retrospective. Foley’s show is also unique because it’s not displayed in a traditional art gallery; the work is actually in a snowboard showroom. The snazzy, well-lit 4500-square-foot space comes equipped with a big-screen TV, comfy chairs and
pigeon poop. Some of the canvasses had been exposed to the elements; others were pockmarked with bullet holes, or had had pieces of furniture thrown through them. That’s the condition they were in when Jim Dickerson, an antiques dealer, met the 62-year-old painter in 2000. The Charlotte resident has photos showing Foley’s giant canvasses stacked in her barn, amid used appliances and menacing piles of snow. Several of the paintings are now on the walls at Copley, complete with four-figure price tags.
Some of the canvasses had been exposed to the elements; others were pockmarked with bullet holes, or had had pieces of furniture thrown through them. down, than anybody I met anywhere.” The depth of Foley’s retrospective proves Bemis’ assertion. It’s likely the first time many of these works have been displayed together. In this show, the large, colorful abstracts Foley was known for later in her life mingle with serene pastoral landscapes, and finely drawn nudes from her student days. Looking at her sketchbooks, it’s possible to trace her progression as an artist. In one, two penciled rows of anatomically correct legs lie beneath a row of legs rendered as geometrical shapes, small towers of circles, triangles and
an Xbox. It belongs to Copley Consolidated, whose owner, Chris Copley, is the Northeast regional sales rep for Burton Snowboards. Most of the year, the room is full of boards, boots and bindings. The story of how Copley came to be exhibiting Foley’s work is strange and sad. Like many artists, Foley wasn’t as good at marketing art as she was at creating it. By the end of her life, the vast bulk of her drawings, oils, watercolors, woodcuts and pastels sat in piles in her studio, or in a barn behind her house. Many were covered with hay and
Foley was filing for divorce from her second husband when she contacted Dickerson to see if he could help her sell some of her antique furniture. He stopped by her house and was intrigued by all the art scattered around. “I’ve never really been much for contemporary art,” Dickerson admits, “but her work hit me immediately.” He and Foley talked for hours. She confided that she was going to have to leave her house as part of the divorce settlement, and didn’t know what to do with her life’s work. “She was just going to walk away and leave it right where it