I retired from the St. Cloud VA Medical Center in June 2011, where I worked for 35 years as a nurse. I joined CMW around 2010 and right off the bat I volunteered to do the CMW Newsletter. When I started doing the newsletter most of them were "mailed" to the members.  I eventually transitioned the members to receive the newsletter by "email" which is how we all get it today!  Being a newsletter editor, is not new to me. I first volunteered to do the newsletter for the St. Cloud Youth Hockey League, then CMW and today I do a newsletter for my current part time job, which is sent out to over 1000 people in the farm mutual insurance business. 

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Art is life for me and it is hard to get out of my head.  I have tried many many art mediums.  Starting with Crayons at age 5, moving on to drawing, calligraphy, writing poetry, crocheting, ceramics, sculpture, woodworking, acrylic painting, alcohol ink, Batik watercolors and in the past 12 years Watercolor and Mixed Media being my new favorites.  

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I like the spontaneity of watercolor and how it can take you on a journey you were not planning. I guess I prefer to paint still life because I tend to paint exactly what I see! I am not one that enjoys Plein Air painting, I prefer to take a photo of something and then  paint it later in the studio. I have been dabbling more in abstract painting & mixed media now, which I find more freeing. I would say I think about ART every day, I see so many things through art! 

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I have traveled to Italy and to Spain with a professional artist, Karlyn Holman & other watercolor artists. Traveling with artists is so different than traveling with non-artists, you see things so differently ~ you notice colors, cast shadows & perspective.. 

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I mean who else would take photos of the marble floors in St Peter's Basilica at the Vatican in Rome because of the great patterns you see for an abstract painting. (ME & an artist friend that's who!)

 

Life without Art to me  ~  is MEH!