As a professional ballet dancer, I felt drawn by the expressiveness of line and movement. When I retired, I cast about for another way to illustrate those images. I fell into visual art when I was asked to illustrate a Pilates book with drawings of animals doing their namesake exercises. That experience led me to enroll in some classes at the Art Students' League in NYC, and I fell in love with the rich colors and possibilities of oil. Hugo Bastidas and Oldrich Teply were among my inspiring teachers, as later, was David Tanner in VA.
