Meredith Nemirov/Ridgway Gallery

I was born and raised in New York City. It was an upbringing filled with culture including frequent visits to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum, MOMA, and others. Also weekly classical music concerts at the Juilliard School, Lincoln Center, and other venues around the city. Later as a teenager, I went to the free concerts in Central Park where I heard the beginnings of reggae music, Bob Marley, Jimmy Cliff, and a lot of jazz at clubs downtown. I was fortunate to have parents who were commercial artists to make a living but also painted and sculpted at home during their time off. They were very supportive of my desire to paint and draw all the time studying figure drawing starting at age 14 at The Art Student’s League of NYC (ASL) and then my choice to attend Parson’s School of Design where I received a BFA in illustration. I worked as a freelance illustrator in NYC for eleven years after graduation.