Maureen Scanlon grew up in Winooski, Vermont, and moved to the Northampton area in 1981. She’s lived here ever since, gathering, she says, remarkable friends and stories along the way.
“I have also had the good fortune to work with some of the best and most-inspiring people in the Valley — my clients and colleagues amaze me,” Scanlon said.
She has worked over the years in a number of art-related jobs – from designing stained-glass windows, making handcrafted items, to rendering line illustrations. She has designed books for local authors Patricia Lee Lewis, William Streeter, James Ricci, and Rita Bleiman, and communications for all sorts of media — including catalogs, direct mail, eblasts, walls, buses, signs and banners, even lip balm labels.
Scanlon has worked on political campaigns for a couple of local candidates. “I am proud to live in the same town as [longtime peace activist] Frances Crowe,” she said.
Full name: Maureen Scanlon
Date and place of birth: June 3, 1956, Dorchester
Town of residence: Florence
Job: Communications design at my company, Murre Creative. I also do graphic design and branding as part of a three-women partnership called The Creative. And I am a long-term care ombudsman.
Children: Daughter Carey Kalimba Scanlon Ascenzo; son-in-law Ian Burns. They live in Queens, New York, and are both sculptors.
Education: Two years of undergrad art studies at the Rhode Island School of Design. I completed my bachelor’s at Smith College as an Ada Comstock Scholar.
Interests: Plein air painting, travel, art museums, hiking, hearing live music, including the Northampton Jazz Workshop, anything Irish, and anything at The Parlor Room in Northampton. I also sing with Valley Jazz Voices.
Book you’d recommend to a friend: Geraldine Brooks’ “People of the Book.” I’m currently reading Jhumpa Lahiri’s collection of short stories, “Unaccustomed Earth,” and always go back to Seamus Heaney’s collection of poems “The Spirit Level.” My favorite authors, especially for audiobooks, are Peter Carey, Tana French and Sebastian Barry.
Favorite singer: Jim Henry
Five things you can’t live without: Potato chips, baked potatoes, scalloped potatoes, French fries, potato salad
Last thing you purchased just for fun: I put together an Easter basket for my daughter and her husband. The best find (at Bird’s in Florence) was Spiderman plastic eggs. I filled them with chocolate-covered espresso beans.
What’s at the top of your bucket list? A trip to Prince Edward Island to paint landscapes and hear music. I’ll be checking that off this year.
Life-changing experiences: Having my daughter. Going to an art museum for the first time. Buying my first piece of artwork.
Strangest job you ever held: In high school, I babysat for an Amway convention. My friend and I watched 13 kids we’d never met before for a 12-hour day, in one hotel room, while the parents were down the hall chanting and cheering. I remember that one 4-year old girl was still being nursed — I had to accompany her and her mom to pick up pizzas for everyone. The mom nursed her daughter while driving a stick-shift VW bug. I was terrified.
Your current Facebook status: I can go for weeks without posting, but I last enjoyed documenting a road trip I took to Chicago with my brother. Two days in a U-Haul driving through the snow belt provided some good posts.
A little-known fact about you: I home-birthed my daughter in our second-floor flat in Winooski. A doctor arrived post-birth to teach one of the midwives how to suture. I paid the two lay midwives’ fees through bartering for services, including sewing a tent for one and designing a logo and stationery system for the other.
Dumbest thing you ever did: Hitchhiked to Boston from northern Vermont in the blizzard of ’78, with our month-old daughter. But the trip had a remarkable outcome that spanned 30 years. Ask me next time you see me.
One trend you’d like to see return: A hyphen restored to the word minivan
What really sets you off? People who use texting abbreviations in actual writing. RU kidding?
If you could spend the day with a celebrity from any time in history, who would it be? Artist Leo Lionni. I heard him speak at a design conference once and he was enchanting. He was equal parts innocent, inquisitive, and wise — qualities that make his work timeless, including his design of the book “The Family of Man,” and the scores of children’s books he wrote and illustrated.
Best advice you ever got: Madeline Kunin, then governor of Vermont, told me at my dad’s wake to follow his example and act on what I believe in.
Favorite places to get a bite: Al’s french fries in South Burlington, Vermont, because of their core product. Pearl Street Diner in Burlington, Vermont—owned by my sister Pamela. Everything she serves is great. Locally: Ibiza, it brings me back to my trip to Spain.
What does your ideal weekend look like? I have several, and need them all: Weekend getaways with friends and family, lazy weekends sleeping in late and reading a good book, weekends doing yardwork and getting dirt under my nails.
One thing you would change about yourself: I’d like to be in school all over again—I’d focus more on learning, and less on grades.
What gives you the creeps? Litterbugs, and especially people who toss icky things on the ground. Dental-flossers and cigarette smokers, take note.
People who knew you in high school thought you were: Smart, but that was just based on my class rank. Artistic, based on my ability to draw Peanuts characters on banners for pep rallies. Short, based on me being 5 foot 2.
Whom do you most admire? I cried when Jim Henson died. He was an original and a visionary. He sparked imaginations and suspended disbelief. “Sesame Street” changed our lives.
Parting shot: You know what happens when you assume …
— Compiled by Brenda Nelson
To suggest someone for ID, send an email to bnelson@gazettenet.com