Bio | Lyall Harris

Lyall Harris is a visual artist, creative and critical writer, and arts educator

Lyall Harris holds a BA in Art History from Northwestern University (Phi Beta Kappa) and an MFA in Book Art and Creative Writing from Mills College as the inaugural graduate in the nation’s first MFA of this kind.

Lyall's artwork has been widely exhibited and recognized with numerous awards, including the The George Hitchcock Prize for painting from the National Academy Museum (NY) and a Purchase Award in Book Art from the University of Utah for a fifteen-book, site-specific project. Her book art can be found in over fifty Special Collection libraries across the United States, including those at Yale, Stanford, Indiana University, Smith College, UC Berkeley, UC Santa Cruz, UCLA, SCAD, the University of Washington, and in the Betty Boyd Dettre Library at the National Museum of Women in the Arts. Her painting has been in solo and group exhibitions across the US and in Italy and France in venues such as Purdue University, Creative Arts Workshop, National Art League, National Academy Museum, Maryland Federation of Art, Sonoma Museum of Visual Art, City College of San Francisco, Cartavetra, Atelier Vis à Vis, and many others. Lyall has been the recipient of fellowships at Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, NALL Foundation in Vence, France, and San Francisco's Grabhorn Institute. Her artwork has additionally been featured in literary magazines, including La Petite Zine, Plain China, Whurk, and Generations.

Her poetry and prose poetry have appeared in The New Guard, The Minnesota Review, The Vincent Brothers Review, The Perch Magazine, The Dewdrop, High Shelf Press, Prose Online, Drunk Monkeys, The Raw Art Review, Cathexis Northwest Press, The Prose Poem Project and elsewhere, and her creative nonfiction has been featured in The Montréal Review. Her book-length poem Barrier Island was shortlisted for the 2020 Anne Sexton Poetry Prize and is forthcoming from The Black Spring Press Group. Her work was First Runner-up for the Doug Draime Prize for Poetry (2020) and she was a BANG! Selected Writer (2016). Her writing has been a finalist in many writing contests, including The Bunchgrass Poetry Prize, The Briar Cliff Review Poetry Contest, The River Styx International Poetry Contest, The Ruth Stone Poetry Prize, The Charles Bukowski Prize for Poetry, and Glimmer Train Press Very Short Fiction Award; she received the Honorable Mention for the Mary Merritt Henry Prize in Poetry. She co-founded and co-edited the literary and art journal The Sigh Press (2014-2019).

Themes in Harris’ work include motherhood, relationships, and the everyday.

Lyall teaches book art and creative writing workshops and classes, most recently at James Madison University, the University of Virginia, and at the Virginia Center for the Book.

She now lives and works in Virginia after 30 years on other coasts and continents.

Selected exhibitions:

112th Annual Exhibition - Back to Front: Artists' Books by Women, Maier Museum, Randolph College (2023-24)
Bound Visions, Beverley Street Studio Gallery, Staunton, VA (2023)
Freed Formats: The Book Reconsidered, traveling exhibition (2019): Mark Twain Library (Redding, CT); Ridgefield Guild of Artists (CT); Ridgefield Library (CT); Putnam Arts Council (Mahopac, NY); Mahopac Public Library (NY); Five Points Gallery (Torrington, CT); University of Hartford Art School (CT)
Visions of the Built Environment; The Book as Place, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA (2019)
Women’s Work, Samek Art Museum, Bucknell University, Lewisburg, PA (2018/2019)
The Interpreted Object / L'oggetto interpretato, Galleria Cartavetra, Florence, Italy (2018) - two-person collaborative exhibition
Opulence, The Center for Book Arts, New York, NY (2018)
Winter Flame, Book Art at Barrister Books, Staunton, VA (2017) - solo exhibition
Meeting Places / Luoghi d'incontro; Collaborative Bookworks by Lyall Harris & Patricia Silva, JMRL, Crozet, VA & San Francisco Public Library, San Francisco, CA (2017) - two-person collaborative exhibition
Passato Prossimo, with Patricia Silva; SRISA Gallery, Florence, Italy (2017) - two-person collaborative exhibition
Book Project International, Atelier Vis-à-Vis, Marseilles, France (2016)
20/20 Vision; Celebrating the Next Generation of Book Artists, San Francisco Center for the Book, CA (2016)
Just One Look, University of Washington, Seattle, WA (2016)
The Artist's Book: Where Concept Meets Object, Virginia Arts of the Book Center, Charlottesville, VA (2016) - solo exhibition
Ruvidezze, Cartavetra, Florence, Italy (2015)
Book Arts Preview, Saint Anselm College, Manchester, NH (2015)
Present[ation] Public[ation] Install[ation], University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT (2014)
Ideation by Chance, Donna Seager Gallery, Mill Valley, CA (2013)
Cave Paper 2012, Minnesota Center for Book Arts and Saint Paul Public Library, Minneapolis, MN (2012)
BiblioTech, SF Public Library, San Francisco, CA (2012)

photo credit: Linda Abbott Photography