About Jeff

Jeff working on block prints

My initial art background comes from my father who informally coached me in drawing and painting while I was still in grade school. In high school my energy went towards music, learning to play the oboe.

I hold a Master of Music degree in oboe performance from the Chicago Musical College of Roosevelt University. Thirty-five years of professional experience includes occasional work with the Chicago, Milwaukee and Toronto Symphony Orchestras, free-lance ballet and opera orchestra performing in Chicago musical venues, radio and television jingles with 22 years of performing in theater orchestras including those of the Shubert Theater (Chicago) and The Chicago Theater. Among the broadway shows I have performed with are, Cats, Evita, Jesus Christ Superstar, Phantom of The Opera, Les Miserables, Fiddler on The Roof (with Zero Mostel), A Chorus Line, The King and I (with Yul Bryner), Joseph and The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (with Donny Osmond) among many others.

I started to paint again in 1983 under the artistic nurturing of George Rocheleau at the Evanston Art Center, Evanston, Illinois. Mr. Rocheleau was a protégé and colleague of Francis Chapin at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

My wife, Ellen, and I settled in Danville, Vermont in 1996. We have found these surroundings to be inspiring both artistically and as a place to call home.

I began doing landscape blockprints of the area around Danville and Peacham, Vermont in 2000. Having grown up and spent most of my life in the urban surroundings of Chicago, it is a revelation and a joy to now dwell in the beautiful rural Northeast Kingdom of Vermont.

Tampico Road 6″ x 6″ This view from the top of Tampico Road in North Danville has all the elements of the lush scenic countryside of the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont.

The rolling hills, small farms and constantly changing rhythm of treed and open land make for stimulating subject matter for my block prints. The very medium itself seems eminently appropriate to the subject. Because I come from an urban background, I don’t doubt that my interpretation of the landscape is romanticized and somewhat “purified”. But it is the very “19th Century-ish” feeling of so much around me that dictates this approach. I am thrilled that many “real Vermonters” (natives) have commented that my work is so essentially “Vermont”. This medium continues to intrigue me. I enjoy the combination of graphic conception with the manual involvement of carving and hand printing.

Discovering “Urban Sketching” around 2013, I started experimenting with a sketchbook and pen and ink along with watercolors. I was particularly inspired to try my hand at it by seeing Shari Blaukopf and Cathy Johnson online. Most of my drawings are of the area in Vermont where I live. I also enjoy sketching when I travel. Click here to see some of my urban sketches.

In 2012 I started going to a life drawing group in St. Johnsbury, Vermont, near where we live. A few years later I helped start an open studio for life drawing in Danville, VT. Drawing from the live model has been very beneficial to all avenues of my art. Click here to go to my life drawings page.

You can email me directly at jnegold@charter.net