I have been blessed with a rich and varied professional life, first as a teaching and performing violinist in the U.S. and abroad, then as a teacher and administrator for an English language program in Spain. For over a decade I taught Spanish at a liberal arts college in Vermont, and a few years ago I retired from teaching to dedicate myself to watercolors.

Some humorous highlights of my journey from Spanish to watercolor:  I was grading Spanish papers on a bench overlooking Lake Champlain, when I noticed a group of scuba divers collecting water samples.  With a shock I realized that while I spent most of my time trying to figure out how to teach the finer points of Spanish grammar, there was a whole world out there that didn’t care about the pluperfect subjunctive in any language.  I needed to get a life!

Actually, I had already had a rich life, but there I was, feeling trapped in my left brain and wondering how to find my way into a bigger, more creative world.  A few days later a little yellow flyer arrived in the mail, advertising night classes at my neighborhood high school, and I was off and running.

For more about my journey, read the blog that Susan McDowell wrote after an interview in 2016.