Myrna H.

After living most of my life on the East Coast, I finally found a home in beautiful, sunny Tucson.  And I eventually discovered, despite degrees in more traditional fields, the joys of playing with clay and other art media.  I approach art the same way I approached biological research: with the attitude that "It's all an experiment." Making art, like scientific inquiry, starts with the known and pushes past the boundaries into the unknown, and both are acts of discovery born of curiosity and creative explorations.

Whether working with clay, glass, paint, or paper, I love learning new techniques and then manipulating materials to push their limits and seeing where they can go.  Paper, like clay, has a memory and mind of its own, and I enjoy the process of playing with it in an attempt to transform it into something three-dimensional and colorful that also, hopefully, makes people smile.

I’ve been a working artist my entire adult life, be it oil painting, writing, or knitting. Raised in the New York City area, I graduated with a BFA from Pratt Institute and an MFA from Boston University. Living on the Long Island Sound and later the New England coast, I oil-painted seascapes on location and, in cold weather, still-lives my studio. I also work from photographs, either taken by me or sent to me by friends. Making art is a process with no “right way", the end result: a destination of discovery.

For a larger view of my work, see my video on my web page: www.austenarts.com , press "About", and see my studio tour from 2021.