CRISTINE KOSSOW

A Parsons trained illustrator, Cristine had a long career in graphic design, but felt it was time to return to painting and quickly found pastels. She holds Master and Signature status in the Pastel Society of America and serves on the Board of Governors. In 2019 she earned Master Circle status in the International Association of Pastel Societies.

She has exhibited at The Salmagundi Club and The National Arts Club in NYC; The Butler Institute of American Art in Youngstown, Ohio; and many galleries in Vermont. She will be published in the April 2020 Pastel Journal/Pastel 100, that presents the years 100 best pastel paintings from around the world.

Cristine’s life unfolded alongside the Hudson River except for a six-year hippie hiatus on a farm in coastal Maine. She now lives in the Champlain Valley of Vermont.

She enjoys painting everyday objects, finding what is personal in the things we encounter every day — our animal friends, tools, farmscapes, piles of produce, piles of anything really — because she loves the rhythm of repetition.

Cristine has her prejudices. She likes to punctuate her work with a sneaky dash of periwinkle; it’s her color. And she had a bitter feud with red for decades. But one summer, at the urging of a bumper crop of tomatoes, Cris called an emotional truce and began a cascade of red musings, so that now she calls red a new friend.