Perseverance to follow her dreams.

It’s probably happened to all of us who have reached a certain age … you walk by a mirror and catch of glimpse of someone you don’t know. How did this happen that I am now this whole different person when I feel like I am still the same?

I loved doing art like all children, so I took a few lessons when I was eight years old. Then my father died when I was nine and we moved. From then until I was in my twenties, I didn’t do art again.

I married, had three children, and enjoyed my life but I always felt something missing that was just for myself. So, I bought some oil paints with green stamps and started painting by reading books and experimenting.

I won’t dwell on all those years of painting, studying with gifted artists and learning to get my work out there. It was not easy without a network of art school friends and living in a small town. I worked hard as all of us do who love what we do. I even started a website back in 1998. There were not a lot of artists doing that at the time.

Now that I have been working as an artist for more than forty years, I have slowed down some. I think that is good. It gives me more time think. I continue to have my work in three galleries and have had up to five at one time. All my kids are grown, my husband passed away after over fifty-seven years of marriage in December.

Now is the fall/winter of my life and I plan to continue to go to the studio and do what I have always done. There might be fewer hours spent, but I think they will be more productive for my personal art life. I am also preparing to get back to doing more travel in the future, beginning with a trip to southern France at the end of the month. The day after I step off the plane will be my seventy-eighth birthday.