Elizabeth Phelps

Elizabeth is delighted to offer a range of Visual Arts classes at Oakwood. Prior to teaching at Oakwood, she taught Visual Art for eleven years at Soundview Preparatory School in Westchester County, NY. Elizabeth, a.k.a Lizzie, then instructed undergraduate students during her Graduate Visual Arts programs at the Maryland Institute College of Art (post-Bac certificate), and SUNY Purchase, School of Art + Design (MFA in Visual Arts). She is an interdisciplinary artist who combines a range of media and methods in her projects: from sculpture and ceramics; to drawing, painting, and printmaking; to video, puppetry, and stop-motion animation. Elizabeth has shown her work regionally in solo and group exhibitions as well as at film screenings or festivals, at such venues as Real Art Ways (Hartford, CT), The Rubin Museum of Art (NYC), and here in Poughkeepsie at Art Centro (now known as FallKill Creative Works). Her 2018 project at Art Centro, Each Day, Water, was awarded a NY State Decentralization Arts Grant, administered through Arts Mid-Hudson. She is a devoted student of Buddhist philosophy and practice, and was fortunate to be able to study and practice meditation in Myanmar/Burma and Nepal for an (informal) sabbatical year in pursuit of this interest, in 2006-07, and has attended myriad other Buddhist meditation teachings and retreats over the past twenty-five years. Lizzie also loves reading fiction (and meeting with her bi-monthly book group over Zoom), poetry, journaling, and spending time in nature. Since she was in high school herself, Lizzie has been an Attender at four different Quaker meetings (Amawalk, NY; Providence, RI; Croton Valley, NY; and Bulls Head, NY), and is thrilled to teach in a Quaker school. Elizabeth lives on campus with her daughter Olivia and their black lab, Chloe. www.elizabethwphelps.com

Professional Affiliations: A.B., Visual Arts and Religious Studies, Brown University; Phi Beta Kappa; Post-Bac Certificate in Fine Arts, Maryland Institute College of Art; M.F.A in Visual Arts, Purchase College School of Art + Design, SUNY
Clubs, Teams & Activities: Oakword: Literary and Visual Arts Magazine, Meditation Club