Carrie Wissler-Thomas

Carrie Wissler-Thomas (born November 02, 1946) is an American artist and business executive. She founded the Harrisburg Gallery Walk, an annual citywide art tour, and is the president of the Art Association of Harrisburg (AAH). Her focus is on expressionistic figures, natural landscapes, and human figures.
==Early life and education==
Wissler-Thomas was born on November 02, 1946, in Ephrata, Pennsylvania, to Grace Urbane Nicholas Wissler and Robert Uibel Wissler, MD. She was named Carolyn Ruth Wissler. After her marriage to Scott Thomas in 1972, she changed her professional name to Carrie Wissler-Thomas.
She finished her BA in fine arts (minor in English history) from Hood College in 1968. Later, in 1987, she received her master’s degree from Temple University. Wissler-Thomas’s honors paper in college was Lyricism in Minoan Art, an essential part of her artwork.
==Career==
Wissler-Thomas was the president of the Board of The Art Association of Harrisburg from 1980 to 1984 and has been Executive Director/President of the Art Association of Harrisburg (AAH) since 1986.
Wissler-Thomas taught private oil painting lessons in her studio and the oil painting class at the Art Association of Harrisburg from 1979 until 1986. 
Wissler-Thomas painted expressionistic figures during the 1980s and early 1990s, attending Charles Li Hadley’s painting from the model class at AAH. She founded Harrisburg Gallery Walk in 1988 and annually organizes the citywide art event.
After moving to their home in Uptown Harrisburg in 1991, she began to paint the Susquehanna River and scenes inspired by their annual family trips to Scotland and England after 1996. Wissler-Thomas also wrote a book on the history of the Art Association of Harrisburg named As the Paint Dries in 2014. In addition, she was a freelance writer for several local publications and an art reviewer.
Wissler-Thomas has held over 40 solo exhibitions in the region and has participated in many group shows, including exhibiting her oil paintings throughout the region. 
==Style==
Wissler-Thomas is an expressive-realist oil painter. She paints portraits, human figures, the Susquehanna River, and landscapes of Scotland, France, and Spain. Lyrical lines and saturated color characterize her paintings.
==Awards==
Wissler-Thomas was the 1991 recipient of Harrisburg Community Theatre’s Distinguished Service to the Arts Award, the 2005 recipient of the Arts Advocate Award, and the 2010 Carolyn Fiedler Alber Arts Advocate Award in Haverford. She was the Outstanding Community Woman of the Year for The Harrisburg Branch of the American Association of University Women 2015.
==Personal Life==
Wissler-Thomas married Scott K. Thomas in March 1972. She and her husband lived in suburban Harrisburg from 1972 until they moved to Uptown Harrisburg in 1991. They have one son, Dylan Crayton Llewellyn Thomas, born in 1973, and one granddaughter, born in 1998, Catherine C. Markley.Cullen, Sandy (December 2002), "The Patriot-News," Home & Garden
She is the cousin of documentary filmmaker Joslyn Barnes and was related to Djuna Barnes (late), a well-known writer from the 1920s.
Category:1946 births
Category:American artists
Category:Business executives
Category:People from Ephrata, Pennsylvania
Category:American people