President’s Message
“I think artists can go to a level of vision that can often save us from a situation which seems to have no solution whatsoever.” – Susan Griffin
I think this quote aptly applies to my life. Over the years, I’ve had to accept that I am empathetic to all that goes on around me. As a young woman, my friends often shared their deepest problems and pain with me. Some said I would have made a good “shrink.” Even though I listened and tried to help others, I never expressed my own problems – and they were overwhelming, but there is an undeniable path in my life; what it once was like, what I painted and how I eventually changed. Realistic portraiture was my first love, but only when I could paint and reveal the emotions of my subject. Often a client would want me to paint from a photograph that did not capture the essence of the subject. I found that type of work tedious. Although I had a job inquiry from a New York portrait studio, I turned it down because of this.