Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Evolution of an Artist

My first article has finally been published! Evolution of an Artist was published in the GNSI Journal of Natural Science Illustration this month. Thank you to the Guild of Natural Science Illustrators for putting me in the Spotlight! The Guild, or GNSI, is a professional organization committed to the nurturing and promoting of its members and is an important educational resource for anyone interested in this specialized genre of illustration work. They also provide important networking opportunities and general camaraderie for its members. I have been a member off and on since finishing graduate school in 1992. You can find out more about them by visiting www.gnsi.org.

Writing is something I've long wanted to do but never had the courage until recently. Like all good projects, it was a collaboration with support from several members of the guild and my husband. It is my first piece of writing but hopefully not my last. Below is the opening paragraph. To read the full article just click here. Enjoy! Your feedback is most welcome.


Bushwhack. One definition says “to make one’s way through woods by cutting at undergrowth, branches, etc.” This is how I ended up rolling through life.

Born into a family with an alcoholic father and a mother busy working to pay the bills and raise three children, “nurturing” was virtually non-existent in my rearing. We hear this sort of story all the time and most certainly there are people who had it much worse than I. But, this environment guided my early years and led me to seek attention and acceptance outwardly, have poor study habits in high school, low self-esteem, no long-term vision, etc. Fortunately, I soon realized the surrogate environment and bad attitude were just more dead ends and not the life I wanted. It took a while for this lost soul to find the confidence to start a journey completely alone. But I did. And that’s what matters in this story.

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