About me -  Kathleen Livingston

When I was a high school freshman in Lansing, Michigan, my English teacher told me to write. But life interrupted. Married at 18, I went on to get a degree in business at Michigan State University and worked for the automotive industry for many years. I didn’t pick up pen and paper and put my thoughts down until thirty years later.

The same with my artwork. As a young girl, I would spend hours drawing from Archie comic books at my grandmother’s table. She would save newsprint in the drawer of her old bureau in the dining room and buy news pencils for me. Simple, magical things they were. But, like writing, the artwork fell by the wayside for years.

The blessings in my life were spending summers on my grandparents’ farm in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. My family went back four generations. I grew up with a real connection to the land and the people. Many of my stories and poetry were recollections of those people.

At 50, I moved from Michigan to the foothills of the Catskills in New York. The trauma of ending a 30-year marriage was also the inspiration to pick up my pen and start recording thoughts and feelings. It was like being released from a very long incarceration.

My artwork also changed and I went from realism to abstract works with color, color, color. Up to that point, my paintings had been structured, much as my life had been…and then it just became fun! I did not have formal training in art but learned through observation. I have met many fine artists in that journey and am thankful for their inspiration.

I now live in an old house in upstate New York two blocks from the Delaware River. I still have my great grandparent’s farm in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan that I spend more time at in the summer months since retiring last fall.

Life is constantly evolving. I would like to think that through the mental and visual images I create, I can share some of that wonder that we all share on this good earth.

- Kathleen Livingston