Artist Faculty Bio: Lana Portolano is an artist and writing educator based in the Washington-Baltimore corridor. She spent the first twenty-five years of her working life as a humanities and writing professor (at Towson University and the U.S. Naval Academy). During that time, she wrote constantly and taught writing. During the last seven years of that career, she researched a book on the visual traditions of Deaf communities, and it changed the way she communicated with others:  “Spending so much time learning about the souls of Deaf people and their visual communication flipped a switch in my brain. Now all the energy I poured into writing goes into making art.”

Lana considers herself a seeker of meaning and beauty that exist tenaciously in the world around us. “As a writer, I loved big projects that dug into the roots of people's real lives. I’m still at the beginning of my visual arts journey, but I know I feel happiest working from life in the context of some bigger goal. In my paintings, I aim for a realism that celebrates the nuances of my subject while hinting at something archetypal and timeless.”

Website: lanaportolano.com

Socials: Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/lanaportolano