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My first real job was at the corporate offices of I Miller Shoes. There I met an unknown Andy Warhol, who was working on their shoe campaign. I then did a brief stint at Scope Advertising as their Media Buyer. After a four year college break, I became a Photo Editor at H.Armstrong Roberts, a stock photo archive in Philly. I came back to New York to work for Scholastic Books as their Photo and Art Editor, where I have credit for several published titles in the book department.
I switched into freelance art and teaching while raising my family. I have taught art for the past twenty five years in art centers, community colleges, and adult education venues. My courses have included drawing, oil painting, acrylic painting, watercolor, illustration, cartooning, anime,. all media workshops, the business side of art, portraiture, etching, monotypes, talented teens, and college entrance portfolio development.. I am still teaching.
I have also worked collectively with fellow artists to found two cooperative galleries, and have helped establish three arts organizations that are flourishing. I have helped apply for several formative grants received by these organizations, have served on their executive boards, and have managed their galleries. I have learned that very dedicated and creative people can create mountains of very dreary unpaid work.
In 1982 I established a wholesale art business, PRINTWORKS, and sucessfully represented and distributed hand pulled original intaglio prints, etchings, monotypes, and originals on paper, for a group of twenty artists. Our annual calendar included several trade shows including Art Expo NY, the ABC/Decor Magazine exhibitions, and a showroom open to the trade. We also outsourced custom framing, and made client presentations, known in the trade as dog and pony shows. It was a successful small business for ten years, until the effort far exceeded the rewards. I closed the business in 1996 when a slump in the art market coincided with a change in market trends. PRINTWORKS was always a high discount low margin business model based on volume sales. The volume came from selling edition prints, and clients now wanted monotypes, e/v, uniques, and originals for the same discounts that had applied to edition prints. . Finally, tastes had changed and hand pulled limited editions produced by an individual artist could not meet the growing demand for much larger and colorful prints. The writing was on the wall, and it was large, colorful, and digital.
Most recently, I am back in the print business, self-publishing a series of giclee editions based on new original paintings in oil and acrylic. The idea of creating multiples has never lost appeal, I simply had to upgrade technology and trade in my etching press for a digital scanner and printer. This is a giant step from sixteenth century technology into the digital age.
I have also been a PTA president, a home renovator, a landlady, a soccer mom, a corporate wife, a divorcee, the proud mother of college graduates, and now a grandmother. It has been busy.
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