BIOGRAPHY

I was born in Hillsboro, Texas, and lived there, in the same house where my mother, Maurine, still lives, until I went off to college. I attended the University of Texas in Austin and graduated with a double major in English and History, and a minor in Philosophy. After teaching 7th and 8th grade English for two years in Port Aransas, Texas (what was I thinking?), I returned to Austin and enrolled in the Graduate School of Library Science. I thought it would be interesting to be a rare books librarian.

In 1966, the call of San Francisco's cool summers, liberal attitudes, and great rock and blues music reached Austin, and I just loaded up my car with all my possessions and moved to Northern California. After working for a year or so as the record librarian for "underground rock" station KMPX-FM (which had the great perk of free Fillmore and Avalon shows!) I moved to the country near Santa Cruz, where I grew organic vegetables, studied esoteric Eastern religions, and embroidered everything in sight. It was the 60's.

My children, Starrs and Emil, were born in Marin County, California, in the early 1970's. While raising my children, I realized that I had always wanted to be a "real" artist: one that painted on canvas instead of drawing on and embroidering clothing. After marrying Charles McBurney in 1975, I started to pursue this goal. I apprenticed myself two days a week to my friend, J. Michael Keating, and began to learn about stretching canvas, the amazing variety of paints and brushes to choose from, and the various mediums for mixing paints. I learned about color mixing with oils from Aleta Bowman. Realizing that I needed to hone my drawing skills, I took classes at the College of Marin in Drawing and Composition and sought out every "real" artist I could find that did realistic work. I studied "Painting with Illusion" with Bill Martin, where I learned many underlying principles for painting realistically. I then became completely fascinated with watercolor due to the influence of and my friendship with Helen Stanley. From the beginning I knew I wanted to paint realistically, and I was extremely lucky to find such amazing teachers, especially when the general art-world attitude toward realism in 1975 was "if you can tell what it is, it's just illustration." It was the tail end of the Abstract Expressionism craze.

I turned a niche in our living room into a studio, and I had my first gallery show in 1979 at the Allport Gallery in Larkspur, California. The ensuing years have been spent perfecting my artistic abilities while raising our children and spending time with family and friends, and now, grandchildren. When I'm not in the studio, I am often hanging out or traveling with my husband, Charles, who gives me invaluable advice on my work (when asked), gives each work a beautifully smooth coat of final varnish, and then takes all the photographs of the finished work. You might also find me curled up with a good book, playing some low-key bridge, or dancing to some great blues music.