I was born
in 1940 in
Yakima ,
WA
. I was the first in
my family to be born in a hospital and I was a "change
of life" baby. My parents were in their 40's and my
three older sisters were 12 to 18 years older than I. My
father was a manager for John Deere Co. and he lived and
breathed his job. My mother was the classic housewife. The
first nine years of my life in
Yakima
were out of a Norman Rockwell painting.
My father's interests decided the family's interests. He
was a championship trap shooter. He shot a single barrel
shot gun at clay pigeons. The "pigeons" were clay
disks about the size of a salad plate, a forerunner of the
Frisbee. At his weekly shoot at a gun club he would shoot
a 100 clay pigeons, I would follow my father carrying his
shell bag and putting the spent shot gun shells on my fingers
for castanets.
World War II was an a constant undercurrent
during these years. Ration books and coupons would be counted
before any trip to the grocery store. My sisters would dance
around when there would be extra coupons for meat and eggs.
My father's obsessive scrap metal drive for the war effort
filled train carload after carload. I was vaguely aware
the war had ended when I ask my mother why she was hanging
the flag on the porch in the middle of the day and not on
a holiday.
My life centered on ice skating.
My dream was to be a star figure skater. I started lessons
with double edged skates at the age of three. The outdoor
skating rink was right next to the slaughter house so the
smells of blood and guts permeated the music played for
the skaters. Listening to the song, "Dance Ballerina,
Dance," mixed with the smells from the meat packers
seemed normal.
My sisters were interested in drawing,
so everything they did I wanted to do and I pestered them
to teach me. My art instruction for the first 16 years was
to copy illustrations of women from magazines like "Good
Housekeeping," and "The Saturday Evening Post."
One exception to this art instruction was when I would draw
with my best friend. She and I would take figurines from
her house and make a small still life and try to draw them.
My first experience with envy and jealousy was when my friend
drew a horse that looked like the figurine horse and mine
didn't. One successful drawing incident happened in the
2nd grade when I refused to draw a tree as a cylinder with
a ball on top. I took my brush and drew trunk and limbs
and put on leaves. The teacher was astounded since I was
not seen as an exceptional student and besides that I was
left handed. The teacher showed the entire class how clever
I was. I think that is when art became more important than
ice skating.
The next ten years were a hasty
exit out of the Rockwell painting life style. In l949 my
father decided that instead of selling farm equipment to
farmers he wanted to be a farmer. My parents purchased a
small grains farm in the Willamette Valley in Oregon. Leaving
sage brush country for the soggy valley was a major blow
to me. The irony is that I now live on the stormy wind and
rain soaked Oregon coast and love it. This is the hardest
decade to write about because so much happened so fast.
The strongest memory is of isolation. No kids my age on
other farms were nearer than five miles. I rode the school
bus 30 miles round trip from 4th grade until graduation
from high school. I learned my best dirty jokes during these
rides and was introduced to kids who lived with child abuse
and abject poverty. One boy doused himself with gasoline
and set himself on fire to escape his father's beatings.
My parents decided that I was becoming
much too fond of art and thought that the life of the artist
was too closely connected to the "Bohemian" lifestyle.
To cure this they carted in my aunt's piano and found a
music teacher. I was to make everyone proud by becoming
a classical pianist. I studied piano for the next eight
years. At first, I thought it was a great deal of fun to
play for people and have them clap enthusiastically after
a recital, but as the pieces became more and more difficult
I thought this takes a lot of work and I would rather be
drawing.
I was rapidly growing into a first
class nerd with an attitude. I discovered that wit and sarcastic
humor were a powerful weapon. I thought Elvis Presley was
ghastly as a singer and performer and that Pat Boone was
far superior (It hurts me as much to admit this as it would
anybody who might read this.). I spent grades 7th through
12th living the life of the jaded ugly duckling. I took
all of the pre college courses and every art class and acting
class available. My biggest ego reinforcement was acting
in school plays. My favorites were character parts. Most
of my clothes had fine silver dust on them from the powder
put on my hair to make me look old.
Boyfriends were somewhat limited
because I lived so far in the country and my parents were
anything but friendly to the male sex. The last thing they
wanted was for me to marry before the age of 40, preferably
never. I received the lecture of don't get hooked up with
some man and throw your life away. I, of course, couldn't
think of a better plan of action than to get married to
escape from home. I fell in love during my sophomore year.
He was two years ahead of me and I thought he looked just
like Tony Curtis. To fast forward, I saw him a couple of
years ago and he looks like hell, way, way old and not at
all like Tony Curtis. I also discovered he named his eldest
daughter after me. To continue, he owned a l956 Ford Convertible
and had he said the word I would have followed him anywhere
even though he lusted after Elizabeth Taylor.
Life on the farm was drudgery. My
parents believed that we had to do all of the work ourselves.
I was taught the "pioneer" way so that I could
exist off the land if I had to. Butchering chickens, hogs
and cows were part of the farm experience I could never
adapt to. Dunking headless chickens in boiling water in
order to pick the feathers off was a hated task. The smell
of wet feathers never leaves the memory. One special wonderful
memory is my dog, Ginger, a Lassie look alike. She lived
13 years and I miss her even today.
I started college with the dream
of my parents firmly in place. I was to be the first college
graduate in our family and I was to make them proud. They
had decided that I could change my career from pianist to
politician. I had become a frothing at the mouth liberal
during my high school and beginning college years. I was
very active in Young Democrats and many weekends I would
be in parking lots plastering unsuspecting cars with bumper
stickers. I canvassed neighborhoods and would cart candidates
to and from speaking engagements. My favorite politician
was U.S. Senator Wayne Morse. Meeting and talking with him
during those years was an absolute thrill and privilege.
I started college at Willamette
U. in Salem, Or but transferred after a semester to Oregon
State U. because of the cost of a private school. I also
discovered to my dismay that all students at Willamette
were required to attend Chapel every week. My religious
beliefs were going a major overhaul and I didn't want to
be bored silly attending a required sermon every week.
Oregon State was my undoing so to
speak. My first term there I met the nerd of my dreams,
soon to be my husband, who was an engineering student who
wore his slide rule on his belt like a six shooter (This
is pre computer age). He was a pocket protector trend setter.
Our two daughters have told me that they can NEVER remember
when their dad didn't have a pocket protector. In fact,
our elder daughter bought him a leather one for dress.
From the age of 19 yrs. through
39 yrs. I was living life with every minute counting. At
the age of 19 with my parents' dreams for me dashed, my
husband and I started life together with a daughter born
8 months after our marriage to be followed by another daughter
3 1/2 yrs. later. My husband decided to change his major
in his senior year from engineering to education. I was
working to "put hubby through" and raising the
kids. I also was painting every Tuesday night under the
guidance of my mentor, Paul Gunn, an art professor at Oregon
State U. He wouldn't let me quit the art and would push
me to take two week summer classes even if I had to sell
the kids. Without him I would never have believed I had
a talent for art. He died two years ago and speaking at
his funeral reduced me to a pile of sobbing blubber.
I continued to work as hubby would
teach for awhile then decide to go to graduate school. First
was the master's in mathematics followed by the Ph.D.
My jobs ran the gamet from production
line worker at a food processing plant to Bookstore Manager
at a community college. And again, all the time I was painting
and painting and painting. I started to enter juried exhibits
and to look for a gallery and to find places to exhibit.
Meanwhile our kids were growing, were smart and showing
a definite interest in music.
A huge geographic change came when
hubby accepted his first university teaching professorship
at the Univ. of Arkansas in Fayetteville. Picture a U-Haul
truck loaded to the max, pulling our l963 Volvo, with hubby,
me, our two girls, two dogs and one cat in the cab of the
truck and you have us in our move to the south. It was now
my turn to return to school so I completed my B.A. and my
M.F.A. in painting, printmaking, drawing at the Univ. of
Arkansas. It was a surreal experience to have both kids
in college with me at the same time. They both decided to
choose the life of the starving musician, with the younger
one ending up with a PhD. in cello performance and music
history and the older one with a B.M. in piano performance.
During the years in school I learned
to multi-task as never before. I would take the kids and
their friends to music lessons and while waiting in the
car I would be studying with a flashlight. While in graduate
school, the art faculty decided to "honor" me
by giving me a teaching fellowship my first year. I taught
beginning drawing, design and figure drawing during my entire
degree program. Two male models wouldn't model for me because
they were dating my daughters. After I received my MFA the
art faculty offered me a tenure tracked position on the
faculty. It was at this time when I looked at my life and
my husband's life and became aware that I had been so goal
focused, that I had failed to notice that my husband was
not only depressed but an alcoholic. Denial is a powerful
coping skill and I think I am one of the best at it.
Enter AA---I started out thinking
that this organization was useless and ended up thanking
them for saving his life. This period in my life has to
be labeled as "get real." Facing life, making
gut wrenching decisions, consumed me. The first decision
I made was to turn down the offer of the tenured position
and move back to Oregon and live on the coast. University
living had lost its sparkle for me. Teaching takes so much
time and although I thoroughly enjoyed it, my frustration
at not spending more time in the studio was driving me nuts.
My husband wanted time to decide
whether to follow me so I loaded another U-Haul and alone
headed West. Our daughters were following their academic
careers, one at the Univ. of Arizona and the other at Portland
State Univ. in Oregon.
All of my colleagues and friends
thought I was absolutely nuts to not only turn down the
position but to move West. They all argued that if I were
determined to move, move to New York. That is the only place
in the U.S. to get recognition as an artist, they said.
Since many of my friends had moved to NYC and I had visited
their studios, I knew they were probably right. But, I can
not live in huge metropolitan areas. After a few weeks in
a large city I start to hyperventilate.
The isolation I experienced in a
negative way when I first moved to a farm turned out to
be something I crave as an adult. I also had this idea that
I needed to return to my roots in order to take the next
step as a painter.
Fortunately or unfortunately for
me, at the time I was looking for work to support my art
habit, a new community college was established in the area
and I applied and got the position of Dean of Instruction.
What a hoot! For five years I worked harder and longer than
I would have at any university teaching job. I discovered
that what I had thought about college administrators or
administrators in general was true because I was now one
of them. To keep my sanity I painted from the time I left
work until 3 a.m. This concentrated time in the studio shifted
my work in the direction I was searching for, combining
dark, twisted, political humor with a figurative style.
I turned in my resignation for a
job most people would kill to have. The president of the
college couldn't believe I would just quit. He would not
announce my resignation for three months and came to my
opening at a Portland gallery where I was showing at the
time to try to talk me out of it.
I was trying different galleries
to see which ones would take a chance on my work which doesn't
have the highest retail sales because of the subject matter
when I met my other mentor. I don't think he knows that
he is my mentor. He is the same age as my elder daughter
and he has the same birthday as I. His name is Paul Arensmeyer
and he looked at my work at the gallery where I wanted to
show. His words about my work were so wonderful and helpful
and encouraging that I felt I could conquer the world. Paul
is my favorite artist and I am convinced a genius. I had
admired his work long before I had met him. Mentors make
a difference!
After a year, hubby decided to move
west to join me. He ended up with a great job as the math
guru for the same community college I worked for and retired
early a couple of years ago.
I have almost used up my allotted
time for this assignment. I will end with saying that it
is the beginning for me. I now have, much to my amazement,
a new 900 square foot studio in my back yard. I can now
paint on the l0' x 7' canvases I always wanted to and I
don't care if critics or galleries don't like them or can't
sell them. I and the visual language are connecting and
I feel like I am just learning how to paint.
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