"Girl Rolling Backwards in Pompeii (Square)" Print

I first learned fresco painting at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 1980 when I was chosen as one of two artists from Indiana University Bloomington for the coveted summer residency. I was so happy to return to Skowhegan in 2021 to work with Italian-trained fresco painters to complete a 4×4 foot wall. In 2023-2024, Indiana Arts Commission provided funding to produce and promote fresco painting in Indiana. My exhibit, Dancing on the Shoulders of Giants, at the Lubeznik Center for the Arts November 3-27, 2023 was the beginning of a year of fresco making funded in part by this grant. The year was capped off with Of Giants and Warriors at the Chesterton Art Center. My recent works have been featured in exhibitions in museums and galleries throughout the Midwest including the “Horizons Reimagined” at the South Bend Museum of Art, “Water: Above and Below” at The Ellen Firme Gallery in Beverly Shores, “Simply Black and White” The Rising Phoenix Gallery in Michigan City, “Indiana Now 2023” at the Art Museum of Greater Lafayette, the 80th Annual Salon Show at South Shore Arts in Munster, “Comp 45” at Beverly Art Center, Chicago, and “MAAC in the Box” at the Box Factory, St. Joseph, MI. My story would not be complete if I did not mention a few high points. Among these was receiving the American Civil Liberties Union’s Civil Liberties Award (1989) for my work in defense of artistic freedom and then an ArtMatters Individual Artist Grant (1993) for the feminist work “A Prayer in NoMans Land” exhibited at Artemisia Gallery in 1993. The trajectory of my career as an artist continued with work addressing gender inequality and censorship through exhibitions at the RH Love Contemporary in Chicago, “The Very Top: Chicago Women Painters” (1989), Lannon Gallery “Symbol of Diversity” (1989); the Visual Arts Center of Alaska, Anchorage, “Seeing Red, White or Blue: Censored in the U.S.A.” (1992), and at Painted Bride, Philadelphia, PA “Text.” A number of artist residencies gave me time to reflect, recharge and make new work including Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (1980), Oxbow School of Art (1982), Ragdale Foundation (1983), the Yale Center for Cultural Sociology (2010) and Skowhegan again, in 2021.