Reared and educated in the suburban Philadelphia community of Yeadon

In 1968, I dropped out of the normal workforce for the first time to pursue my artistic interests. At this point, I was self-taught and participated regularly in workshop groups with other young and not-so-young artists in West Philadelphia. I would begin showing at various civic affairs by May, 1968. I mounted exhibitions at various colleges in the Philadelphia area such as Temple, La Salle, the Uchoraji Gallery which was in the W.E. B. DuBois dormitory and the museum of the University of Pennsylvania.

In January, 1977, I began my formal art study at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA). The largest challenge for some (though not all) of my instructors at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts was trying to impose control over my use of color and pattern. I endured this to some extent, but now I use these elements freely as I see fit and according to my feelings while creating because that feeling evolves.

During my 4 ½ years of formal training at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, I studied various drawing methods drawing in figure and portrait studios also in the still life studios. I tend to enjoy landscape painting more when doing it directly so that is my usual approach to that kind of subject. Also studied etching, lithography, sculpture (clay modeling) I was offered a working scholarship after my first semester of study at PAFA I accepted and acquired the position as etching monitor (de facto instructor). This responsibility caused me to speed masses of time in the printmaking studios and lab. When you seek to help someone else learn, I find that you will educate yourself more in the process. Everyone’s expression is so unique, it is really unimaginable. During my attendance I was awarded the Mabel Wilson Woodrow Prize for excellence in Printmaking from the Academy and a scholarship from the Philadelphia City Council.

There was a change to the school administration, 1980, or somewhere in that timeframe. The Registrar at the school asked me to consider taking the job as administrative assistant for the new dean. I believe it was the end of that spring semester. I delighted, accepted and began to work in that position through the final year of my study. I’d gone to business school after high school and had a few years of office work under my belt; plus, I’d worked in the office at my father’s business from the age of 13. I’d also done a great job as the etching monitor managing rambunctious art students, some very young. I was not so young, I’d entered the school at age 33.

December, 1982: Relocated to Washington, DC metropolitan area: Concentrated on painting and showing work. For the next couple of years, I immersed myself in the task of assimilating the knowledge gathered at art school doing the quite solitary task of drawing, painting, making art about 14-16 or more hours per day

Dedicated to my craft, during that time, I traveled up and down 95 a bit exhibiting paintings in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Maryland, Washington, D.C. and Virginia as well as some other more distant venues.

In 1988, my husband and I moved to St. Thomas, US. Virgin Islands. I continued to paint very regularly, once we’d moved into our little place there. I began showing in local art exhibits on St. Thomas almost as soon as I arrived and I received the Best New Artist award in the Jim Tillet Spring Exhibition in 1988. I would begin showing paintings at Virgilio’s restaurant in St. Thomas within a year’s time after meeting Virgilio Del Mare at a fundraising benefit in St. Croix where I showed a few paintings. My paintings hung in Virgilio’s Restaurant until about a year or so after Virgilio’s death a year or so after the COVID 19 pandemic. Thanks Virgilio, my dear friend....you treated me better than most of the art galleries I had dealt with before moving away from the mainland.

Cuzzins’ Restaurant was my other main venue during those years. The two restaurants had superb food and patrons who had very deep art appreciation. My work was purchased by people who lived all over the United States and around the world who had come for a visit to beautiful St. Thomas Island.

I participated in many group art shows on the islands and mounted a few one-person exhibitions. This allowed me to develop a dedicated group of patrons throughout the islands and other parts of the Caribbean. This great diversity of exposure and venues led to my works being acquired by collectors from all over the world.

In 2001, I was asked to participate in the Annual Good Hope Art show, an event put on by the development group for this Private School on the West End of St. Croix. This exhibition became my main effort for several years along with private sales. I was the featured artist in the 2006 exhibit. During that exhibit in 2006 I did the artwork for the poster and notecards which was the biggest selling poster ever produced during its 16 year history. The poster and note cards continue to be popular sellers in later years since being originally featured and the original artwork for the poster were purchased along with some miniatures of other works. My husband would hang that show for me after I stopped at home briefly between deployments to my FEMA job which I’d been doing pretty frequently from 1995 or so. I would come home from working in Mississippi after the Hurricane Katrina disaster, pack up three or four larger paintings fly to St. Croix to mneet the head of the Develop Committee so that I could sign 50 of the posters that had been made. Those signed poster would be featured at a higher price at the exhibition store.

When I got back to St. Thomas from that day-trip, I would begin to work out the visual scheme for the exhibition. I made a diagram for my husband to use to hang the works I packed up for him to transport to St. Croix when he went over to do vision saving outreach for the Lions Club at an annual event on the island which took place at the same time of year.

Because of the exposure gained at the Good Hope Annual Show, Candia Atwater, who was one of the principal originators of the Caribbean Museum Center for The Arts has become a faithful patron. Candia’s patronage and support has been responsible for me having been invited to be an exhibitor at the Opening Show for the museum in 2008. They accepted six paintings for loan which two were sold during the exhibit. My paintings were also featured in the museum’s calendars in 2006, 2007(calendar cover), 2009 and the day planner for 2011.

My mother passed away in April, 2008; then my father died the next in April. The notion to move back home to the Philadelphia area occurred to me. After sharing my thoughts of moving back home with my husband, he concurred. So in June. 2010 after purging and packing what we accumulated in those 23 years of happily living in the Virgin Islands, my husband and our little dog, Ginger, and Shadow, our cat and I moved back to Yeadon. PA.

Finally, in September after a long ocean voyage, my husband’s pick up truck, my studio contents, my paintings and other belongings arrived. I am ready to start painting. I look forward to sharing my passion for creating art in the very place where that passion was originally nurtured and cultivated. I have found over time my emotional motivators may change, but, I still respond to the basic action of light on form and color to inspire my works of art.

I have, at times, painted full-time from the time my feet hit the floor in the morning until very late into the night. Still other times, I’ve had to sensibly work on another full-time job and paint in my off times, mostly on the weekends. Artificial light is not the best for painting so the night time was not the right time for painting. In more recent years I have alternated my FEMA assignments and work at home in my studio.

A colleague of mine reminds me that I will always paint because I am too stubborn not to do so.

Fifteen or more years ago, Louis B. Sloan, my friend and mentor, past conservator at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and Dean of Students at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (Lou was approaching retirement at the time.) asked me if I’d ever thought of and advised me to begin offering private classes to artists. Then he asked me how I’d accomplish that. What a compliment coming from the best and most generous artist/instructor I’d ever encountered. I would absolutely love to approach this but time and economics haven’t allowed me to do so up to this point in time until now.

I am very concerned that few people, even those who think they may be serious prospective artists, realize how much cost and sacrifice are involved in the pursuit. The only way to produce quality artwork is to study, practice, practice, practice and stand at the easel and do it. It is not coloring, folks. It is more like construction. You find the abstract form in the composition, break it up and begin to build. Then you continue adjusting until you reach completion. There are not any valid shortcuts in producing fine art. I know folks who call themselves artists who throw, drip and flip paint. They’ve talked to me long and hard and still can’t convince me about what they think they are doing. I strongly feel the act of making art is something deliberate. It is important to use the best quality materials possible for work you intend to sell. Cheap materials will make your work almost instantly disposable.

Then, I frame my painting like my very loving mother dressed her dear children to look their best.

It’s all about the ART.