The art I create is a reflection of who I am and where I came from and the beauty of nature, culture, and cuisine that I experienced as a child of a family on a never-ending exploration.
My sister and I grew up in the 60s and 70s. During that time, in large part because of the corporate culture of relocation, my father’s career grew and it provided the opportunity to move around the country. We lived in 6 different states.
Battle Creek, Michigan
Greenville and Evergreen, Alabama
Lakewood, New Jersey
Richmond, Virginia
Detroit Suburbs, Michigan
Tulsa, Oklahoma
San Jose, California
I’m grateful for a vivid visual memory, which provided me with a canvas that helped shape my creative life.
ART & ARCHITECTURE
Art museums in NYC and Washington DC; Diego Rivera Murals at DIA; Native American jewelry; fabric from the NYC garment district; exploring revolutionary and antebellum homes; sleeping on a screened-in porch; treasure hunting at estate sales and auctions. And art teachers that cultivated and nourished my love of art.
HISTORICAL MUSEUMS
Hike around revolutionary battlefields; Monticello; Colonial Williamsburg; Washington DC; Greenfield Village and the Henry Ford Museum.
REGIONAL CUISINE
Gulf coast fried shrimp and hush puppies; delicatessens with bagel and lox; authentic Mexican food; fresh-caught bluegill, and hunting morel mushrooms. Weekend picnics that included my mom's southern fried chicken.
NATURAL WONDERS
The Great Lakes; camping on the white sand beaches of the Florida panhandle; swimming at the Jersey shore; Crabbing in the Virginia tidewaters; the Pacific Ocean and marine life; Appalachian and the Blue Ridge Mountains; the smell of magnolia; Spanish moss and sitting under weeping willow trees.
MICHIGAN – my home state
Because we lived all over the U.S., I never had a sense of belonging, perhaps because we didn’t have enough time to grow roots in each community. But every year we would head back to Michigan to spend summers with my cousins and grandparents on small Michigan lakes. I felt the comfort of being part of a clan and an understanding of who I was as a McMillen and an artist.
