Debra Conklin
Los Angeles
Debra's first painting. 1969
I was born in Iowa. My parents were both writers, my father a newspaper reporter and editor, and my mother a teacher and poet. Each summer we traveled the country in a Volkswagen Bus, a slow vehicle which gave me plenty of time to become a landscape observer.
On Saturdays I went to an art class at the Des Moines Art Center. Mrs. Ross led us through the museum walking slowly; we looked. Then we worked in a huge studio filled with light. We worked on paintings or sculptures for weeks, longer than a young person could imagine spending on one thing. It wasn't until I became a teacher myself that I realized how learning to look is what makes an artist.
Every time I moved, from Iowa to Massachusetts, back to Iowa, to Minnesota, to California I was looking as if I had changed worlds.
I received my MA and MFA in painting from the University of Iowa. I worked as an art teacher in public and private schools and museums and have continued to work in my own studio, exhibit and sell my work.
Art photography by Kent Conklin