Multimedia Artist Sabrina Fadial Is the New Director of T.W. Wood Gallery 

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• Pamela Polston ©️ Seven Days
• Sabrina Fadial with a sculpture in progress

If you were looking for a stellar example of a multimedia artist, you could head to South Barre, Vt. More specifically, to Stevens Branch Studios. That's where Sabrina Fadial makes and teaches art and where the pleasant clutter of her three-room workspace reveals a remarkable range of activities — from drawing and painting to sewing and soft sculpture to blacksmithing and welding.

Fadial's career itself has been just as varied. First, the North Carolina native headed north for her education: the Rhode Island School of Design, for a BFA in textiles in 1989; and Vermont College of Fine Arts, for a master's in visual art in 2001. Later roles at VCFA included residency assistant, gallery director and director of alumni relations. She also picked up a certificate in nonprofit management through Marlboro College.

Since 2018, Fadial has been an adjunct professor in the school of architecture and art at Norwich University. She's a blacksmithing instructor at AVA Gallery and Art Center in Lebanon, N.H., and teaches welding and building through Rosie's Girls, a teen program of Vermont Works for Women.

And that's not all. This summer, Fadial accepted yet another gig: executive director of the T.W. Wood Gallery in Montpelier.

"I wasn't necessarily looking for a job," she said during a studio visit last weekend, "but the post came up on my Facebook feed. I read it and realized I checked all the boxes."

Fadial decided to apply. "It all just fell into place," she said with a vestigial honeyed accent. "It feels like a good fit."

The gallery, which is inside the Center for Arts and Learning on Barre Street, contains a treasure trove of 700-plus paintings, drawings and prints by Thomas Waterman Wood (1823-1903). The Montpelier-born artist, who studied in New York and Europe, left his works to the city. The collection, which includes copies of paintings by European masters, resided in several venues over the years, including VCFA; it joined the consortium of arts nonprofits at CAL in 2012.

The directorship is a full-time position but allows Fadial to continue teaching at Norwich two mornings a week. "When I'm not in class, I'll be at the gallery," she said. "Weekends and evenings I'm in the studio."

Fadial noted that the Wood's afterschool art programs for K-2 are full, and she anticipates leading projects for teens and adults, as well.

The gallery is also the repository of an important collection not by Wood: paintings by artists in the Work Progress Administration. (The WPA was a Depression-era program that, in part, paid artists, musicians, writers and other creatives for their work to offset massive unemployment.)

"I want to let people know about the WPA collection!" Fadial said, acknowledging the challenge of marketing a gallery that's off the beaten path. In the planning stages, she said, is "a mural that will go up on the Statehouse lawn, then be installed at [Montpelier's] transit center." And to honor the 200th birthday of T.W. Wood in November, she added, "we have plans for projections around downtown Montpelier."

Fadial is also designing a mural she titled "Dancing in the Streets" for the parking lot next to Julio's Cantina on State Street. The cheerful theme will surely be welcome in a city that still faces a long post-flood recovery. "As soon as the snow melts, I'll get that going," Fadial said.

In the gallery meantime, she envisions using Wood's paintings as models in adult drawing classes, both to better utilize the gallery's resources and to introduce Wood's work to more students. She'll also be able to curate the gallery's contemporary exhibition space — where Fadial mounted a solo exhibition herself in February 2022.

First, though, she has to finish up one of her own works: a sculptural installation for the Kent Museum in Calais, which opens its annual exhibition of Vermont artists on Friday, September 8.

In contrast to Fadial's weighty forged and welded metal sculptures, this one appears delicate, with thin wire loops joined together in a sort of curtain. It's one of several pieces she'll show at the Kent.

Even while sitting for an interview, Fadial managed to multitask: talking while playing tug-of-war with Piglet, her 8-year-old pit bull mix. Asked how she juggles art-making and so many jobs, she was unruffled: "It's all just one big art project," she said with a grin.

And, apparently, there is always time for more. "I'm really excited about the Pull Room [Printmaking Studio] at CAL," Fadial enthused. "It's right across from my office!"