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I’ve loved being an artist all my life.  As an illustrator for over fifty years and as a painter for over thirty-five, I’ve been able to find my voice.

I’ve also been able to find hope, even now in these profoundly challenging times.  

In my kitchen I work at a well-worn wooden table.  Paper-collages and quilts I can create in any light but I need bright daylight for my landscape paintings of the natural world.

Two pottery vases of paintbrushes and a cardboard berry-tray of paints stay beckoning for my landscapes, sheets of paper stay organized for my collages, and bolts of fabric stay ready for my quilts.

And I love the color turquoise.

My landscapes showing Vermont go to galleries and nonprofit fundraisers.  My illustrations reflecting the work of community-based organizations go all over.  Longtime favorites include the Champlain Housing Trust (the largest affordable-housing community land trust in the world), the Intervale Community Farm Cooperative (one of the largest community-supported agriculture farms in New England) and NOFA Vermont (providing support for organic farmers and farming throughout Vermont).

Colorful illustrations are in a new book On Common Ground: International Perspectives on the Community Land Trust containing compelling stories from grassroots activists in a dozen countries.  I am so thankful that my art finds walking-distance usefulness as well as connections in the wider world.

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Bonnie graduated from Sarah Lawrence College in 1970, took classes at the Massachusetts College of Art from 1984-85, and has lived in Burlington since 1986.  She has been recognized for both her art and her community service in a wide variety of ways.  Highlights include being noted in the book Legendary Locals of Burlington (2013), being celebrated by the City of Burlington on Bonnie Acker Day (2013), being in the Stuck in Vermont video Co-op Gardening with Bonnie (2014), being part of the Shelburne Museum exhibit Eyes On The Land: Artists Explore Farms and Forests Conserved by the Vermont Land Trust (2015) and being a commentator for Vermont Public Radio’s Cultivating Resilience series (2017).