Visual art has influenced
my life as long as I can remember.
Before books, museums,
galleries and famous artist instructors, prairie
town painters magnetized my youthful free spirit
and set patterns that would eventually lead to a
professional career.
An eccentric neighbor from
Illinois, whose Victorian house was hung floor to
ceiling with her own paintings, wove stories of
Chicago and Cleveland art centers, while I caressed
large pieces of baroque bronzes in her collection
and she exposed me to the fragrance of oil and
turpentine.
A first grade teacher
recognized and praised a talent; subsequent
teachers encouraged development. A family friend,
confined to her chair, exemplified the joy attained
from using one's artistic talent.
My earliest recollections
include spending long afternoons in my father's
hardware store where I would pull up a stool and
open drawers filled with long handled brushes.
Above them, pigeon holes sheltered tubes of oil
paints. I would conjure up all kinds of pictures as
I carefully unscrewed their caps and in my
imagination, paint with the brilliant colors. My
mother was as tantalized by the art materials as I.
She found many uses for the shopworn or damaged
supplies in her crafts.
My first visit to a museum
of renown was in St. Louis while a freshman in
college, and the winning of a costume design award
from a dress manufacturer during the same time
shoved me further into drawing and painting.
While requirements of
child rearing overshadowed the developing interest,
the talent lay dormant for several years, until a
loving, sharing person watered and nurtured those
stored seeds. The growth since is budding all over
with full blossoming yet to come.
After a shift of family
responsibilities, new directions toward artistic
pursuits brought fresh challenges each day. I have
always had an extreme empathy with the Indian
culture, even in beginning paintings, and
landscapes. It was not until the family lineage was
traced seventeen generations and the Cherokee
heritage surfaced and melded with pastoral
English-Scotch-French ancestry, some of whom were
artistically productive, that I understood those
leanings. I searched for professional instruction
on color and finally met Henry Hensche of
Provicetown, Massachusetts, who taught the effect
of light on color. My excitement for painting burst
out of its containment! Following enrollment at Art
Students League, New York, workshops with top
artists in America pushed me headlong into a
painting career.
Sometimes during those
years, I found Robert Henri's Art Spirit, the
painter's bible. Each paragraph spurs new thoughts
and ideas. When I need inspiration and cannot visit
a museum or gallery, this book, along with a
library of other art publications, thrusts all the
creative urges into gear and I am off on another
project. Every exposure solidifies the intrigue and
mystery of future goals.
For the last 20 years, I
have devoted full-time to being an artist, writing
a newspaper column on art, travel painting,
producing in the studio and occasionally
teaching.
Fortunately, I have been
in the right place at the right time with the right
people who have made things happen. Extensive
training along with dedication and determination
have allowed me to produce many successful
paintings in watercolor, oil and pastel as well as
a few pieces of bronze. Paintings hang in private
collections, banks, hospitals, Washington offices,
United States Coast Guard permanent collections in
Connecticut and Florida, business offices and
medical complexes. I enjoy membership in several
art organizations, including the oldest
professional group, Salmagundi Club, New York, and
exhibit there occasionally. I operate my own
studio-gallery which is open by appointment.
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