To get through University with a degree in Fine Art, I worked as a secretary/research assistant in the office of the governor of Montana, then as a secretary and DJ in the university FM radio station, meteorology data clerk, and horticulture ground crew worker... after graduation, a starving artist trying to make it as a painter with no money to promote my work. That meant I lived on almost no income and spent alot of time painting and drawing with no money to ship or photograph the work in order to show it to the public! I eventually did show my work, but illness, deaths, setbacks, threw me into a graphic design job at the university, which led to a pretty good commercial illustration and art director job with a company that is a major supplier of souvenir silkscreened shirts. National parks, ski resorts, destination tourist spots... my work was sold in all of them. I had to travel to trade shows, work long hours, and when I had my son, put him in a home day care from the time he was born. I learned alot and made alot of valuable professional contacts that helped me move on to freelancing in 1991.

Current #1 real job: I am my son's mom. Three more years and he will be out of high school. Raising him has been more rewarding than any paid job.

I decided to quit that secure art director job when my son was three, as I realized he was being raised more by a day care mom than by his own mom. We needed to be a family, and the only way to do that, the only way for me to really guide his development, was to be home with him. I set up a studio in my living room and I continued working in the souvenir sportswear industry as a freelancer. I also picked up a part time horticulture job that I continue to do, maintaining indoor plantscapes in the hospital, bank, offices, mansions.

Book cover illustration - my next move forward in art, started with my first assignment earlier this year. The cover illo was for a book for young readers titled Camp Of The Angel. It will be published later this year. The publisher is Philomel (does the Redwall books) a division of Penguin/Putnam.

Currently I am working on ski/winter embroidery art for a new client called Cheyenne River, 36 designs due on August 10 (yikes). I'm finishing up the final art on a front and back design for a forest fire commemorative shirt, Firefight 2002, for a company in California.

I sing trad Irish, Scottish, British folk songs for fun and money.

Not much time to mudcat anymore, although I've been on Mudcat since 1997.

Alice in Montana