How I got to be the "whimsical artist"

Though, I am much older than what I expect an emerging artist to be, I am really just starting out.

I had my life planned out from the time I was a little girl in Olney, Philadelphia. I would paint and draw all the time. I was extremely shy--and that hasn't changed much. But drawing allowed me to both escape and be more part of things. Move forward many years... in the early 1980's I attended Tyler School of Art – as planned for years. I loved Tyler, but I didn't love school. The school part was difficult for me as I had undiagnosed ADHD (lots of things made much more sense to me when I was actually diagnosed in my 40's).

Back to my art--oh so long ago my art was large, dark, mostly focused on the masks that people wear to hide themselves. A little later I moved on to making 3-D paintings on paper. They were bright and some were even fun.

It was soon after school that I met my husband. I took what I thought was going to be a short break, but ended up being a 30-year break to enjoy and endure marriage and raise four thoroughly amazing children. After the children were grown, I jumped back in to creating art, but my focus had completely changed from that of an angsty young woman, to a joyful woman, whose life had become full of animals, fun and humor. My paintings now reflect this outlook on life.

It was soon after college that I met my husband. I took what I thought was going to be a short break from painting, but ended up being a 30-year break to enjoy and endure marriage and raise four thoroughly amazing children. The plan was for me to get back to painting full time when our youngest was in school. Well, that didn't happen. Our youngest did go to school, but my husband left, changed his name, and basically disappeared off the face of the earth. After many years I got a call from his mother saying that he was dead and I needed to go and identify the body. Long story there, perhaps for some other time.

I went back to school for graphic design in order to get a job to support the four children. My father was right - you really can't get a job with an education in fine arts. Who knew! I got an Associates degree in graphic design (or what was called "Specialized Technology, Visual Communications"). I hated graphic design, but I learned to build websites and I LOVED that. So, I got a job in web development. And I worked in that field up until I was laid off from a big corporation, who decided to outsource the work I did to India--which was fine, they were an Indian company after all.

It's not fun being laid off in your early 60's. I had planned to work another 5-7 years. I had no idea how difficult it was going to be to get another job in my field. I looked for two years, had soooo many interviews - must have been at least 100. Fortunately, I always had side gigs and the work consulting work I started back in 2006 under the name Baldy Dog. I tried to get that going again, and I did acquire more work, but nothing that would even come close to replacing my income from my full time job.

So, it seemed like the time to jump back in to creating art. What I found was that my focus had completely changed from that of an angsty young woman (dark and dreary), a woman whose life had become full of animals, fun and humor. And, my paintings now reflect this outlook on life.

In between job interviews, I spent the past couple of years experimenting with different styles and techniques until I found what felt right.

After much experimenting, my colors evolved into a bit darker yet strangely fun.

I see everything with unique personalities – I aim to bring those personalities into my work. When the animals in my life have human personalities, it was a very easy transition in to anthropomorphic paintings.

So what happens is that I bring real objects and photos into the painted scene to change the feeling of the environment - to make something plain become whimsical and fun.

None of this is what I planned and now that I’m older, it’s all that I want to do.