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How I started out and then became an artist . . .

I guess it started with digging up some clay in our backyard when I was maybe 8 or 9 and
fashioning a horse’s head. I took it in the house to show my mother who was having  bridge club. Everyone was amazed! I had always drawn and colored, but my mother’s friends suggested then that maybe I had talent that warranted some extra lessons. So I took some oil painting lessons after school with a local woman.

In high school I painted and drew and did the sets for the Senior Play. I knew by then that I wanted to be an artist, wife and mother in my life. I went to college in Dubuque, Iowa, majoring in studio art and spent my junior year of college in Aix-en-Provence, France. I studied art, art history and French language mostly and really enjoyed being in the same town as the Atelier Cezanne. I got to travel and see some of the great art I had seen in books for so long. It was amazing and had a lasting effect on me. I was especially influenced by the sculpture of Giacometti and the paintings of Matisse, Picasso, Van Gogh and in college back here in the States, the abstract expressionists and Georgia O’Keefe.

After college I got a job, married, raised three children with my husband, Tom, and worked in the printing industry for over 25 years. I retired in 2005 and have been pursuing my passion for art and self expression since then. I work mostly in oils right now and am learning to follow my learning path as an artist with conviction and a commitment to thoughtfulness.

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