Bio, CV, Artist Statement — A Dawn Every Day Artist

Informal Bio

In 2020, I dedicated a large portion of my garage for studio space after moving to a wetland community on the Albemarle Sound in NC. With my children now all in school full-time, and while working as an executive assistant virtually, I've been busy creating new artwork, participating in art shows, and illustrating children books.

I'm largely a self-taught artist and art enthusiast. I've taken a couple of art classes while at a Liberal Arts college, but majoring or even minoring in art was not practical for my practical, working class family. Even becoming an art teacher was not a sufficiently practical enough life choice. (Even a Creative Writing English degree was a hard no.) So I struggled to finish first a BA in English, then tried to continue being practical and completed a MS in Mass Communication with a concentration in Journalism, as my father would have wanted. It wasn't what I wanted.

But with the online/computer skill sets I was exposed to, with all the exposure to technology, digital photography, research, social media, and website building, not only did I land a few flexible jobs I could do from home while raising children, but also gained access to online resources and more I was previously unaware of and can now use as tools. A lot of challenges have arisen. It was not simple to bridge the technology and cultural gap that developed in the 1990s (old school versus new school, pre-internet to post internet 2.0).

I paint in mostly acrylics and sometimes oil (looking forward to returning to oils now I have dedicated studio space with a drying rack and a door). I also enjoy oil pastels and mixed media. However,

I’m looking into more natural mediums that are more environmentally sensible and not mediums that are reflections of our current state of affairs.

I do what I can and what I want when I can wherever I may be.

Sometimes that means upcycling cardboard with paint and pastels and sometimes that means buying canvases and new paint and brushes. Sometimes I’m working in my garage studio. Sometimes in my gazebo with the breezes and sounds of fussy birds and trilling insects.

I've participated in three open call art shows in North Carolina and two art shows in Virginia, one as a guest of a folk artist and one as a solo exhibit at a local library. I’m looking on adding more to my CV.