Melissa Verdier is an Adjunct Member of ACGOW. She became an art teacher upon receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree from Briarcliff College, N.Y. and a Master of Arts degree at Western Connecticut State University in Danbury. She continued fine art studies at SUNY Purchase, N.Y., as well as through travels throughout the U.S. and abroad. Verdier has worked in various media with a focus on figure and landscape studies doing studio work and independent studies in watercolor, printmaking and pastel.

       She has been included in numerous juried shows, winning prizes throughout Connecticut, including Silvermine, Maritime Gallery at Mystic Seaport, Mystic Museum of Art, Ridgefield Guild of Artists, New Canaan Society for the Arts, and in New York with the Historical Society Museums of Pound Ridge and Bedford. She is a juried member of Mystic Museum of Art, CT. Her works are in private and corporate collections throughout the U.S. and Canada.

       She writes, “I was fortunate to enjoy art at a very young age while observing my father working in oils. He was a writer by trade but an artist at heart. Our many museum visits encouraged my creative side to discover my own styles. My paintings have mainly featured landscapes, waterscapes and places where I have traveled or lived. My use of analogous colors creates a calming and painterly effect."