Celebrating women artists who radiate wisdom, experience, strength, and the beauty of aging.
ENDURING VISIONARIES
An Artist Directory Exhibition
April 6 - 28, 2026
Welcome to Enduring Visionaries, a group exhibition of the Art Dames Society's Directory Artists.
We are proud to present art work in a variety of mediums; acrylic, digital, wood veer, sewn mixed media, old books, and printmaking along with the written word in form of poetry created by our talented artists.
Please support these incredible women by clicking on their images to view their work, visit their websites, share their art, follow them on Instagram and of course, purchase their work. Contact them directly by clicking on their Purchase Inquiry button. Artists will receive all profits.
Thank you and enjoy the exhibition!
Carolyn Sanders
White River Junction, VT
ABOUT CAROLYN
A graduate of Goucher College in 1999 with a creative writing degree, Carolyn is a Vermont resident for the last twenty years. Her other passions include singing, playing the cello, guitar and piano. Despite multiple immune system disorders and advanced heart failure, Carolyn spends most of her time in nature hiking or snowshoeing. On days when symptoms or pain limit her outdoor activities, she turns to art and writing as a release. Carolyn is grateful to be thriving despite the odds against her, and considers music and art vital to maintaining good health.
Gina McHugh - Twirling Tree Art
Morristown, VT
ABOUT GINA
I deeply love the natural world - it brings me a lot of peace and happiness as well as creative inspiration. I enjoy the solitude and opportunity it provides to slow down and notice little things like the curl of a leaf, the flip of a flower petal, the way a piece of birch bark peels, the playfulness of animals as they go about their business. These seemingly peripheral, incidental things catch my attention and stop me in my tracks, waiting to be acknowledged, and I simply aim to celebrate these whimsical moments in my art. I think that in this always-busy-ever-changing world, I just feel compelled to capture and preserve these small quiet moments in time that nature offers.
Kate Hendrickson
Chicago, IL
and
Sarasota, FL
ABOUT KATE
In response to the emotional aftermath of October 7th, I turned to my art to process my grief and unease. This new digital series merges backgrounds from Revealed Faith with dynamic bicycle imagery from Bicycle Dynamism, layering symbols of spiritual comfort and personal freedom. What began as an intuitive collage revealed a more profound truth: I no longer need to hide parts of myself. This work reflects a reclamation of identity and the courage to live and create authentically. I now wear my Chai with pride, letting both faith and freedom speak through the art.
Kate Hendrickson lives and works in both Chicago and Sarasota. She earned her MFA from the University of Denver. She has been a visiting artist at West Virginia University's School of Art and Design. She has been a Visiting Committee Member to the College of Creative Arts of WVU and is currently a Creative Consultant in their mentorship program. Hendrickson's work has been included in group exhibitions at Grace Howl Contemporary Art (Sarasota, FL), Bridgeport Art Center (Chicago, IL), ARC Gallery (Chicago, IL), and SPAACES (Sarasota, FL). Her work has also been exhibited through Mesh Art Gallery (Chicago, IL ) at Print Fairs at the McNay Fine Art Museum (San Antonio, TX), Minneapolis Institute of Art (Minneapolis, MN), and the Cleveland Museum of Art (Cleveland, OH). Her artwork is now on view at Madron Gallery (Chicago, IL) until June 2026.
Susan Smereka
Burlington, VT
ABOUT SUSAN
Whether working with printmaking, collage, sewing, or installation, I explore beauty through the reconciliation of opposites: angst and resolution, chaos and order, the unknown and calm. For me, beauty is discovered—found where it did not previously exist.
As a dual citizen of Canada and the United States, raised outside Toronto and living in Vermont for over 35 years, duality is central to both my life and practice. In the studio, this emerges through the tension between messiness and structure—where intuition meets form and coincidence becomes connection.
Currently, my work examines family dynamics and inherited memory. Drawing on epigenetics, I consider how emotional experiences, like genetic traits, are passed across generations. Using stitching and repeated forms, I piece together fragments—letters, photographs, and materials—exploring how families are built, fractured, and reimagined.
Recent exhibitions include RE: shape (South Burlington City Hall, 2026); constant continuum (Studio Place Arts, 2025); coagulate (Axel’s Gallery, 2025); Locus (Central Vermont Medical Center, 2024); Stitched and Screwed (Towle Hill Studio, 2024); and Traces (Art at the Kent, 2023)
