About

Scott Poole has been writing and performing poetry in the Pacific Northwest for over 30 years. He has been a painter for 17 years, but began exhibiting in just the last three years. He is best known for his 11 year stint as the "House Poet" on the weekly Live Wire! public radio variety show, taped in Portland, OR and broadcast nationally by Public Radio International. He is the author of seven books of poetry: most recently, The Clouds Will Save You Now (Lunch Hour Press,  2022)  In 2019, he finally combined his two art forms by marrying 20 original paintings with 20 of his poems in Vacancy,  a limited edition chapbook (Lunchhour Press 2019). Since then he has produced a book of 20 poems and 20 paintings every year. He lives in Vancouver, WA with his wife and family where he works as a software developer.

Artist’s Statement:

I came to painting and drawing at the relatively late age of 35.  I began doodling on my calendar at work and found that I couldn’t stop. Soon, I was buying paper and pastels and spending more and more of my free time drawing. Pastels changed to acrylic, acrylic moved to oils.  I taught myself by trial and error, reading, watching ( thousands of youtube videos) and taking private classes from Alexander Rokoff and Tom Relth. 

It amazes me that over fifteen years later, painting and drawing are still almost a daily habit for me. When I began, I always thought this was going to be a private hobby.  However, as I grew as an artist I wanted to show my work to people.  Friends began buying paintings.  People kept telling me you should exhibit in a gallery.  So three years ago, I finally got up the nerve to apply for a call to an open show and was accepted!  So now I guess I can call myself an artist.  Who knew it would get this far?

For me, the process of creating the art is the greatest joy.  I hope that this joy comes through in the art and translates to the viewer.  Hundreds have offered me encouragement along the way and I can’t thank you enough.