Theresa Donsen Feder

Theresa Donsen Feder was born in 1945 in York, Pennsylvania, to Ruth Waltemyer and Robert Donsen. An uncle was a commercial artist. Feder says he provided a role model for her as someone who made and painted things for fun as well as for a livelihood. She also remembers her father always drawing funny little cartoons. She has painted as long as she can remember. “I always loved art and I always painted. I had friends who were artists. Even the word ‘studio’ had an allure to me.” However, her father advised her to study history or English, which she did.

She graduated from the York Suburban High School in 1963. She received a BA in English from Ithaca College in 1967 and married Hank Feder. In 1970 she received and MA in Modern British Literature from Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In 1977 the Feders moved to Hartford, Connecticut for her husband’s first job. She took non-degree courses at the Hartford Art School at the University of Hartford.

From 1980 to 2001 Feder was Adjunct Professor of English at the University of Hartford. She continued to paint and began to integrate her knowledge of language and literature into her paintings. An announcement for a 1994 lecture she gave to the Boca Raton Pen Women Club where her mother-in-law was President noted: “She (Feder) is well known throughout the United States for her work in the field of art as it relates to literature, language and pornography.” Feder herself later wrote: “As far as 'pornography' goes, I don't remember that quote. I did participate in a panel discussion or gave a talk, if I remember correctly, on art and pornography. It was a very academic kind of thing. If my mother-in-law did say that, she was joking. She loved shocking people. She was an artist who had studied at the Maryland Institute of Art. She was pretty well known as an artist in York, Pa. She loved Gaugin and Grant Wood, with whom she communicated by letter for a while. She encouraged me in my art quite a lot. I think she thought I had become an artist because of her. There may have been some truth in that, come to think of it.”

In 1982 she participated in a group show at the Canton Artists’ Guild in Canton, Connecticut and in 1983 she had her first solo show at Michael Shortell’s MS Gallery in Hartford. She has no specific recollection of how she met Michael but surmises that he may have first seen her work when framing it in his shop. “He (Michael) has been a great, appreciated friend for many years.” Shortell, writing in 1989 explained his reaction to her work:

“When I was first introduced to Terry Feder’s work, I though “Yeah, so . . . ?” It seemed like to (sic) fluff to me at the time. People I knew were raving (quietly) about her work and I couldn’t understand it. I wondered if I was missing something somewhere, for there was no question of my not showing her. A year later, though, I was still looking and began to see that this work was not so simple after all.

In the years that followed, I saw a lot of Terry’s work; in fact most of it. A lot of it passed through the gallery. I’ve found her to be one of the hardest working artists I know, always striving to create new and better works, and experimenting with styles and material for form an evergrowing body of exceptionally fine artwork.”

She showed again at the MS Gallery in 1984 in the second anniversary show along with Howard Rackliffe, Ronald Sloan, and Beth Williams. Bernard Hanson, a former dean of the Hartford Art School, reviewed the show in the Hartford Courant. “Her (Feder’s) watercolors are excursions into a realm of fantasy that lift the heart and spirit. Her vision is close to pure primitivism. Everything is obvious. There is no mystery in any visual elements of her work, all is clearly and cleanly presented.”

In 1986, again at the MS Gallery, she showed along with Mary Barringer, Jonathan Frechett, Richard Harden, Chet Kempczynski, Janice LaMotta, Howard Rackliffe, Elisa Tenenbaum, and John Willis. In 1987 she had another solo show at MS Gallery and in 1993 she had a show at the 100 Pearl Gallery where Janis LaMotta was a curator.

In 1995 she participated in the first of many shows at Janice LaMotta’s Paessagio Gallery, a successor to the MS Gallery.

Since 1995 she has participated in many local gallery shows including:

1995 Stamford Museum, “Words and Images, the Works of 15 Connecticut Artists”,

1996 Paessagio Gallery, “By the Sea”,

1998 Paesaggio Gallery. (Matt Damisker’s review in the Courant cited her watercolors on plaster and noted the interaction between the text and the image. He wrote, Her watercolors on plaster, “deepen with conceptual seriousness when we read the text scratched in the plaster. For example ‘Excellence in millimeter not miles; From poor to good is great, from good to best is small.’”),

2001 100 Pearl with Lisa MacBride,

2003 Paesaggio Gallery with Elisa Tenebaum,

2006 Hartford Art School Faculty Exhibition at the Joseloff Gallery,

2007 New Arts Gallery in Litchfield, “The Hartford Eight” with Ellen Carey, Peter Waite, Chet Kempczynski, Michelle Canton, Johns Willis, Bill Burke, and David Borawski.

2007-2010 Shows at Brickwalk Books and Fine Art in West Hartford, Millrace Books, Unionville Museum, EBK, New Space Gallery in Litchfield, Clare Gallery in Hartford, and LaMotta Fine Art in Hartford,

2010 Central Connecticut State University New Britain, Faculty Exhibition; Pia Sjolin Design in Farmington, “Artists Inspired by the Farmington River”,

2011New Britain Museum of American Art, “Water Show”; Artspace Gallery in Hartford, “MS Redux”,

2012 Theaterworks Gallery in Hartford; CCSU New Britain faculty show,

2013 Hartford Art School Faculty Exhibition; Farmington Land Trust Show, “for the love of the land”,

2014 EBK Gallery in Hartford titled “small works”; Five Points Gallery in Torrington with Michael Donovan and Michael Quadland; Ethel Walker School in Simsbury,

2015 Five Points Gallery in Torrington.

She has taught both English and art in many schools and universities.

1996-2003 High School Art Students

1996 Visiting artist at the Farmington, New Britain, and Plainville student art festival

1999-present Adjunct Professor of Art CCSU

2000-2008 Adjunct Professor of English and Art History, Post University

2001-present Adjunct Professor of At Hartford Art School

When asked which local artists she particularly admires she wrote: “I always loved the work of Jonathan Frechette, especially the early work just after he graduated from Yale. I love the work of John Willis and Jim Lee, both of whose work I own. Rachel Siporin’s prints are filled with color and activity. I admire Susan Finnegan’s abstractions. Ellen (Carey) and Power Booth), of course. Beth Williams is doing sculpture made of plastic bags. Peter Waite is a favorite artist. My favorite local artist is Sol LeWitt.” She later added, “Somehow forgot one of my favorite artists, a former student who is very successful - Sam Eckwurtzel. I love his work.”

She no longer incorporates language in her work but said: “I am often tempted to go back to words because everybody loves that work, but you can’t go home again!”

She has designed murals for the Peppercorn’s Grill in Hartford and My Gym in West Hartford, and participated in the Sol LeWitt project at the Joseloff Gallery at the University of Hartford. “I worked on another Sol LeWitt project as well, in the house of Mickey Cartin, another collector. Everything was prescribed - the base paint, the instruments (9H pencils, which we could not erase but had to use a special razor blade to remove if we made a mistake) measuring devices made in his studio in NY. When it was done it looked like silvery lace or mesh on the white wall. It was delicate and extremely beautiful. A full time employee of Sol LeWitt's and I worked on the project for five days and on the sixth day, Saturday, Sol LeWitt came to inspect it and declared it perfect. Then he gave me a drawing, which he had done for the other project as well, paid me, collected the money from the Cartins and left. He was very, very generous to other artists.”

Her works are held in the collections of NBMAA, The Chase Family, the Bushnell, Reid and Riga, Day, Berry, and Howard, CIGNA, Aetna, UCONN Health Center, and Michael Shortell.

Asked to comment on the local art scene she wrote: “We are lucky to have Central, Manchester, Trinity and the art school at U of H. All the institutions are filled with talented artists who are generous, enthusiastic teachers. Five Points Gallery has taken up where Michael left off years ago. We haven’t had a gallery that shows new, exciting work for a long time.”

Feder and her partner Vine Tully live in Farmington where she has her studio. One of her children is an artist, but works in the medical profession.

Artist’s Statement from the 2010 Five Points Gallery Show

“I make watercolors for my children and now for my son-in-law for their birthday presents. Artists usually think of their main work, which for me is usually in oil, as more important than the more peripheral work, but as the years – and paintings -add up, you see that there are several strains in your work that you never anticipated as having a life of their own. This is what has happened to the watercolors for me, and they seem even more lively because they are about love and loved ones.

“The Reach” is oil on aluminum. It depicts the westernmost edge of St. Croix. I started working on metal because I like to paint on hard surfaces and because I once noticed that another artist was working on metal, but the metal was completely covered, and I thought ‘why not let the metal show?’. I have worked on lead, zinc, steel, and aluminum, all of which are very beautiful. Still life paintings are always from life; landscapes are from photographs and sketches, depending upon how much time I have when I’m at the place I want to paint. I’m always interested in light. I have tried making larger, more expressive paintings, but I always revert to my tight work. As John Cage wrote, ‘Do not try to create and analyze at the same time, they are two different processes.’ So I do what I want to do and worry about it later.”

Damsker, Matt, Hartford Courant, 8/30/1998

Feder, Terry, Response to questions 2/10/2016

Hanson, Bernard, Hartford Courant, 7/1/1984

Hartford Courant Archives

The News, Boca Raton, March 21, 1994

Raynor, Vivien, ART; Words and Images, the Works of 15 Connecticut Artists, New York Times, June 4, 1995

Shortell, Michael, “Collecting Art MS Gallery”, 1989