VCP’s PRINT GALLERY

January 2026 Featured Artist:

bewitched and bewildered by Michael Poster

Exhibition Dates: January 9 – February 29, 2026 
Artist Reception: Friday, January 9, 2026, 5-7pm
Artist Talk: Friday, January 30, 2026, 5:30pm

Arnold is bewitched. He will remember this dance as long as he lives. I will too.

Artist Statement

bewitched and bewildered is a memoir—and a protest—in two parts. The first, bewitched, is showing at the Vermont Center for Photography through January. In February, the second part, bewildered, will take its place.

I am a photographer and a true storyteller. I am a husband, father, and grandfather. I am a gardener, a woods-walker, a recovering heroin addict, and an old man.

I have made picture stories about a city, a small town, and a messianic community; about women’s roller derby, factory work, the consequences of natural gas development, circus performers, orchard workers, addiction, recovery, and aging. I have worked inside these stories, and they are long—years long. The stories never truly end; people begin to recover, then relapse. Someone finds love, loses it, then finds it again.

The pictures on the wall are parts of those stories. I’ve known many of the people in these pictures just long enough to get permission, raise the camera to my eye, and press the shutter button. Others have inspired years of affection and picture-making.

Who are they? One is a friend and mentor who spent years in prison for violent crimes; now he offers comfort and support to the most vulnerable among us. Another is an angel I encountered in the Arizona desert, photographed from the front seat of my car. There’s a woman from a lifetime ago who left a hole in my heart that refuses to heal. And a woman I’ve loved for a lifetime. There’s a tiny girl with her kitten; it’s just a snapshot, but as important to me as any picture I could never afford to own. There is a picture about someone who was never actually in the frame. How can that be? Come, look, and see.

Michael Poster
2026

* * *