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Agy Wilson was born in Fort Wayne, Indiana and raised for most of her life in Southern Maine....
Strike that. I’m working on making my work more immediate, and closer to the heart of what I feel I have to say. I grew up in a house, filled with paper (my father was a paper coating engineer) and lots of “me” time. I had an innate understanding of how important books and art are, but pretty much left to my own devices, with the idea “but what WILL she do when she grows up-- you can‘t make a living at art!”.
This left me with the determination to NOT grow up. Or at least not in the conventional sense. Instead of running away to the circus, I ran away to art school, The Portland Art School (now known as the Maine College of Art). I studied with Bill Collins, Chip Chadburne and Ed Douglas. Illustrating was out of the question for me (it wasn't offered and pooh-poohed in those dinosaur days), and graphic arts was not the best fit. So I dropped out on the day the circus came to town (how's that for a sense of irony?) and studied calligraphy instead. I studied with Bonnie Spiegel, Peter Halliday, Ieuan Rees, Mark Van Stone, Julian Waters, Nancy Culmone, and Paul Maurer. Then I embarked on my own teaching/freelancing career and have been at it for over thirty years.
I dabbled in many fields trying to find the correct fit. I’ve been a teacher, worked in bronze foundries as a wax artist, am an egg artist (pysanki and painting endangered species for Wild-N-Wonderful Galleries at Busch Gardens, Tampa Bay, Florida). Not being able to limit my interests very well, and a keen interest in people gave me a career path resembling Pluto, with similar results. Then came the idea to combine it ALL, where I am now-- the perfect career--- writing and illustrating for children.
I’m avidly working on a couple of picture books, an historical middle grade novel, and a couple of burgeoning graphic novels. I’ll keep the world posted!
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