Personal Narrative and Artistic Credo

I was born in New York City and grew up in Larchmont, New York. I attended Wright Oral School and as a teenager, after my family moved to Central Park West in Manhattan, I began to attend the Washington Irving High School, where, I won an art scholarship to New York University. At the same time I received a congratulatory letter from the White House.

I grew up in such a sheltered oralist environment, that it was not until age 25 that I made enough Deaf friends to become interested in sign language. Now, like so many former oralists, I use sign language in my daily life and with my husband and friends.

My love of art was first awakened by my mother, who was a painter herself. Her good taste in art was a stimulus to me, and so was traveling to see the masterpieces in the Louvre Museum in Paris and in Italy's various museums. I often went with her to the art museums in New York, especially the Metropolitan, Guggenheim, and Museum of Modern Art. I attended the Art League on 57th Street in Manhattan and later the famous Pratt Institute in Brooklyn.

It also helped that my father, as the head of a textile printing company, developed artistic print patterns, which influenced my imagination.

One significant art experience that served me well in later years was when my mother enrolled me at age nine in still life and nude classes at the Art Students League in Manhattan. I loved the still life class but avoided the nude class out of shyness. Still, my mother insisted that I attend that class despite my tender age of nine. I had no choice, so I drew small figures on large sheets of pager until my instructor told me to draw bigger.

Later, I studied at Pratt for three and half years. Starting in my third year I was doing very well, but was unable to continue because I got married for a second time and was raising three children.

My second marriage is to a Deaf Holocaust survivor, Eugene Bergman, the first Deaf person to earn a Ph.D. in English, and a Professor of English at Gallaudet for twenty years, now retired. He has also authored books and plays about Deaf culture. We currently reside in Bethesda, Maryland.

Now when I look back at my time while at the Pratt Institute I see that it was a golden opportunity for me to learn so much and it helped me to become the artist I am. I think I can accomplish much more in the future because I feel I keep growing as an artist. It is important to have self-confidence. I have been an artist my whole life and my style has been evolving over the years in the sense that I develop and strengthen the distinctive hallmarks of my painting.

In 1972 I received the NAD Achievement Award for Excellence in Cultural Achievement for a drawing that I did with a single unbroken line when I was in high school. At numerous Deaf congresses and a variety of Deaf cultural affairs I won the first prize. After I won about 10 times, I stopped competing to let other Deaf artists have a chance.

The media I prefer are oil, watercolor, and pen and ink. More recently, I have become interested in sculpting with terracotta. My emphasis is on portraits as character studies, though.