I received my watercolor training from professor Wasyl Palijczuk at Western Maryland College (now McDaniel College). He taught us the skills not only of rendering representational imagery, but, more importantly, how to find our own voice and to form the fuzzy colors of our subconscious into a focused expression. I also received a liberal arts education, which taught me that art is a language, a voice that connects with so many aspects of living and learning – it is a way to communicate our shared humanity. I live on top of a mountain with my husband Don in rural southwest Virginia, (and for eighteen years with our son, Nicholas) and this closeness to nature and family has also greatly influenced my work. My master mentors are Kathe Kollwitz, Georgia O’Keeffe, Charles Rennie MacIntosh, John Duncan, Winslow Homer, Helen Frankenthaler, Paul Jenkins, and Michelangelo.
As an instructor of art at Southwest Virginia Community College, I try to prepare my students for the real world in the context of my portfolio/resume/marketing classes for which the students must organize, market and install their own exhibition. My ongoing experiences as a successful professional artist hopefully bring an element of practicality and vision to my students. I also believe that teaching in a community college means that “community” is an important element of teaching and learning. My students are involved in mural making and service learning in after-school art classes for children, as well as making contact with local artists and art centers to learn from professional expertise.
As self-employed artists, my husband and I have, over the years, operated a frame shop and gallery, helped other artists and framers to start up their own businesses, and attempted to make the arts in general more accessible to our small rural community through leadership in regional arts organizations.
In recent years, I have enjoyed taking my art “over yonder” from my mountaintop home in Jewell Ridge, Virginia, to Aberdeen and Ayreshire, Scotland, as well as Ivanovo, Russia. Don and I traveled to Common Ground Scotland in August 2002 for the opportunity of teaching a watercolor workshop, and on an ongoing basis, (for six years now), I continue to teach and we both participate in Common Ground on the Hill in Westminster, Maryland - a wonderful bringing together of musicians, visual artists, writers, dancers, and students of all ages and backgrounds for the purpose of learning, teaching, and meaningful dialogue. My work as Artist-in-Residence for a year in Aberdeen, Scotland and as a team teacher for a US State Department grant program in Ivanovo, Russia were both results of my teaching position at Southwest Virginia Community College. In the realm of mural painting, I have supervised and participated in the painting of two outdoor community-created murals and have painted nine acrylic murals of my own in several states.
I am very proud and humbled by the appreciation my colleagues and friends have shown for my efforts over the years by the presentation of several awards. I was named a “Southwest Virginia Community College Cultural Ambassador” in the summer of 2001, and, as an alumni of McDaniel College, I was awarded the Trustees Alumni Award in 2002. In the 1980’s, I was named “Citizen of the Year” by my own hometown community of Richlands, Virginia – a very special award to me. My most fulfilling rewards, however, come from realizing the concrete effect that work in the realm of the arts can have on students, on colleagues, on one’s self, and on the human condition.
I feel that our creative voices are so vital, particularly now in our world of excessive and confused information. I think that many of us feel weakened by the magnitude of it all and therefore I think it particularly important to support the arts by encouraging our children and our society to participate in creative dialogue.