Seedling Collage

I have been making art all my life. I have no formal training, believing that since I already was an artist, there was no need to attend art school - a decision I have since questioned. I went to a liberal arts college and moved to New York, soon after, working in both advertising and gallery management. I freelanced as a model, a job which iled me to pose for three wonderful artists, Tom Wesselman, Will Barnet, and Duane Michals. I took classes at the Art Student's League, the School of Visual Arts, and worked at Bob Blackburn's Printmaking Studio. I moved to China in 1990 with my husband and two small children in tow. It was there that I was introduced to a group of artists called The New Literati. Tired of propaganda painting and "art serving politics", they sought to create a new social atmosphere through simple depictions of everyday life. Working with traditional techniques and materials, they rendered contemporary images and concerns, and often infused their work with poetry. I studied with Zhu Xinjian, who patiently taught me the magic of ink and gouache on rice paper, and how to mount them as scrolls. The influence of these artists on my work was enormous. They taught me that less is often more, a lesson I am still learning. I currently live in Camden, Maine, and am working with a variety of mediums.