Art in many incarnations

Sheri Ramsey in her studioSome of my earliest memories are of drawing on construction paper with crayolas and in the dirt with sticks.

As I got older, I drew fantasy houses, fictional families, animals, maps and sketches of towns and villages. The first painting I created started with a large drawing of open French doors on a balcon. My mother loved it but thought my painting was too primitive so she turned my drawing over to my older sister to repaint it — a forced collaboration.

My first painting class was at the local community college during spring semester of my senior year of high school. We painted in oils and I loved it. I still have that painting.

My college experience started at university in Texas; in one year I went from general studies and home ec to architecture to art. Then art with a capital A when I transferred to the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, MD (MICA). Culture shock and the start of my art education and journey.

Design, color, painting, drawing, photography, printmaking, art history — I dove into the classes, the tools and the terminology. It was an exciting, absorbing, life-changing experience. In the years since, art has remained a major element in my life: drawing, painting, printmaking and photography. I have had many jobs, some in the arts, some far removed.

In 2011, Sheri Ramsey, a Springfield artist and friend, introduced me to pastels. Thus began my pastel journey. In 2012, I juried into the Prairie Art Alliance [now merged with the Springfield Art Association and known as the SAA Collective] in pastel and photography. I feel I've come full circle — back to painting, drawing and photography, but now seasoned with some business and life experience. I'm animated by art and design in all its forms and fascinated by how art expresses and forms our lives and culture.

"Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time." — Thomas Merton