M
aybe it was the influence of my childhood in Greenwhich Village where I attended a pottery school at age seven and enjoyed browsing the art exhibits at Washington Square Park or maybe it was the times that I stayed home from school due to a serious bout with brochial asthma and spent hours sketching and coloring, but there has always been the artist in me. I did a lot more drawing and painting in my youth, and I minored in art in high school, but I veered away as I entered the work force. Instead I used my “leisure time” to write poety, short stories, and eventually novels. After time in the business world, I returned to college to pursue graduate studies in education. I became a teacher of language arts, but still I pursued the arts by creating stained glass objects, decorating, and writing.
When the local adult school offered art classes, I took up drawing and watercolor. There is much to be said for the connections I make with my writing and art. Both require observing one’s world and draw upon experiences.
I believe that using that type of creativity with my art enriches my writing, and vice versa. Three of my novels, Angels Among Us, A Kiss Out of Time, and A Dance Out of Time feature artists as the protagonists, and I somehow work in artsy types in my stories. A recent trip to the Montclair Art Museum inspired a story which I plan to finish writing this summer. So, I will continue to dabble and to draw and to paint and to be “artsy” in other ways.
