Diane Gabriel

Diane Gabriel

BURLINGTON - Diane Gabriel, artist, wife, mother, sister, and grandmother, passed away on December 24, 2017 at the University Vermont Medical Center after suffering a sudden and massive cerebral hemorrhage the previous evening. She was born in New York City on September 12, 1947, to Herbert and Jean Gabriel. Even as a child she exhibited notable artistic ability. She attended the Art Students League in the 1950s and was admitted to the highly prestigious and selective High School of Music and Art, both in New York. After graduation in the mid-1960s, she studied art at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh for a year and then fashion at the Parsons School of Design. In 1970 she married and moved to Vermont, living first in Waitsfield but then and primarily in Duxbury. There as a single mother she raised her son Eben Cahan, worked as a craftsperson, and simultaneously attended and graduated from Goddard College. She moved to South Burlington in the 1980s and continued to make her living as a craftsperson until 1991, when she married UVM Professor Mark Stoler and with his support shifted from crafts to pure art, which had always been her true love. She worked in multiple media, most notably monoprints, photographs and sculpture. Her work was extensively exhibited locally, statewide and nationally, and is held in both private and public collections. She was the recipient of Individual Artist Grants from the Vermont Art Council, fellowships from the Vermont Studio Center, and the inaugural Barbara Smail Award conferred by Burlington City Arts in 2002. She was also one of the founding members of the 215 College Gallery.

Throughout this time Diane continued to reside with Mark in their Burlington home, while spending summers and autumns in their beloved mountain retreat in Starksboro. From August through November of this year she lived with her sister in New Jersey, where they nursed their beloved 97 year-old mother through her final illness. She had returned permanently to Vermont only a few weeks ago.

Diane is survived by her husband Mark Stoler; her son Eben Cahan of Santa Fe, NM; her sister Lorraine and brother-in-Law Robert Sherman of Maplewood; her grandsons David Cahan of Denver, CO and Gabriel and Ayrton Cahan of Santa Fe, NM; her niece Ayala and husband Shaun Azari of Falls Village, CT; her nephew Eliezer Sherman of Los Angeles, CA and her niece Arielle Sherman of New York City. To say she loved and was beloved by each of them as well as her numerous friends would be a gross understatement. She was a wonderful and very, very special human being. As her last act of kindness, she donated her organs so that others may live.

Funeral Services will take place today, December 27, at Ohavi Zedek Synagogue at 188 N. Prospect St. in Burlington at 1:30 PM, followed immediately by burial at Hebrew Holy Society, 319 Patchen Road in S. Burlington. The family will then sit Shiva, the traditional Jewish week of mourning, at Diane and Mark's Burlington home, with visiting hours Wednesday 6-8 pm; Thursday 11 am-4pm and 6-8 pm; Friday 11am-4pm; Saturday 6-8pm; Sunday 11am-4pm and 6-8 pm; and Monday 11am-4pm and 6-8pm, with evening services taking place there at 7 PM on Wednesday, Thursday, Sunday and Monday. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to one of the following organizations: Burlington City Arts, the Fleming Museum, Studio Place Arts, VSA Vermont, the Jewish Women's Archive, and Ohavi Zedek Synagogue. Funeral arrangements are by Boucher and Pritchard Funeral Directors.