I do not know when the passion for drawing and painting manifested in me. However, what I remember is that my father told me that I was already holding a pencil before I could even walk. I drew like any child who loves colors and scribbles, carefree.
My first style exercise was in elementary school. I chose to draw a Virgin Mary which won me the second prize. The first was awarded to a boy who had drawn a battle-ready warship.
My love of the arts continued to grow thanks to my father's attention to me in this area. I had become an autodidact and a true fan of painting.
Growing up in Washington DC was certainly a godsend. Almost every weekend my dad would take us, my sister and I to the National Art Gallery or the Smithonian Institute, to name a few. In Washington DC access to museums is completely free.
When I was twelve my father declared that I was ripe to learn oil painting! So after each gallery visit I would rush home and spend endless hours copying the great masters. My shyness prevented me from working in the gallery itself as many students did. I also tried my hand at charcoal and pastel.
One day my father told me that he had nothing more to teach me. At fourteen I decided to paint and draw directly from nature. Everything fascinated me, old shoes, trees, human bodies. I had a hard time finding models who would have liked to pose nude. I wanted to study anatomy.
At that time I was also discovering that the more I observed the outside world the more my inside world intensified. I read intensely everything about the masters who inspired me the most, including Klee and Kandinsky.
The revelation came in the middle of the night when I woke up, feverish. I couldn't fall asleep again without finishing my very first large canvas. That year, September 14, 1971, I wrote in my diary: "One day I will be an artist. I want to express my deepest feelings through painting and drawing. I want to create my own style and not copy the world as I see it, but capture its essence. I know it will be hard and long but I also know that one day it will pay off. These words turned out to be almost prophetic as I was getting married at 20 and giving birth to three children. At 28 I was teaching in a kindergarten. But in order to keep intact my love for painting, it was now necessary to share it with the love of a wife, a mother, a teacher and a friend.
This situation resulted in more work and more problems. When at the age of 14 I realized that my life would be meaningless without painting I came to the sad conclusion that in this school where I taught, art was dying. Besides, I was bitterly aware that I knew absolutely nothing about color and had no one to turn to. At that time I was starting a quest for inner spirituality.
I left my home when I was fifteen and a half. Fate took me to Germany where I joined the Rudolf Steiner School (Waldorf) for the last four years of study. The manner in which all this happened continues to amaze me and fill me with gratitude to this day. In summary I would say that when I entered the school for the first time and saw the shapes and colors around me, I knew, finally, that I was at home that I had joined paradise! So there was a school that held art in high esteem. I had found a place where I could learn the nature of color.
We were studying the theory of colors and light in physics, according to Goethe, applied to painting. My rebellious nature was not satisfied with that. Then came the trip to Italy. My feelings about art were now well established. Life went on and I flourished among children, drawing and illustrating fairy tales. And if I had any energy left I would go back to my easel to paint for myself. In the 1980s a minor interlude arose which marked a turning point in the determination of my personal style.
A second interlude appeared in France in the 90s. I was looking for my way. Until then, nothing seemed "true" to me. I had to create my own style. In the spring of 2002 I decided to quit teaching at least for the time being. But my demons kept assaulting me. Is this all just a dream? So I decided to suppress my fears. I would go on a trip: Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, Morocco, France, Italy, Eastern Europe, Portugal, Greece and as far as Crete.
I discovered, throughout these trips and my various readings, a passion which had its roots in Ireland, that of the “Sacred Feminine”.