As a child growing up on the Jersey shore in a large, boisterous family, I yearned to create my own space and personal expression. During high school, I hung out in the art room and often hopped a bus into NYC to visit art museums and galleries. At Seattle University I earned teaching credentials to support myself. After graduation, I returned to NYC and spent several years teaching. At this time, my husband, Michael and I began to raise a family.

After a couple cross country moves, we finally settled in rural Western New York state. Fredonia is an hour south of Buffalo NY which has the incredible Albright Knox and Burchfield Penny Art Museums. I earned an MA in English Literature at the State University of New York in Fredonia, where I began teaching literature and writing classes. As a certified yoga instructor, I opened a studio where I taught Iyengar-style hatha yoga and meditation/deep relaxation. Attending informal art classes in a lovely old barn, I played with mixed-media and begin exhibiting my work.

A formal study of art began with noted Realist painter, Raymond Bonilla and Cuban American artist, Alberto Rey. I started working in three series: landscapes, figures/portraits, and interiors. Oil became my medium of choice as I worked in a representational style.  At the same time, I became increasingly involved with our county arts group, North Shore Arts Alliance. In addition to showing my paintings in many juried art exhibitions, my work now gained gallery representation in Glass Growers Gallery, Erie, PA. and Chautauqua Art Gallery, in Jamestown, NY.

But the West was calling again, so, after almost forty years in Fredonia, Mike and I packed up and moved to Albuquerque, NM. While developing new paintings that explore a range of vision, atmosphere and emotion. Living in the shadow of the Sandia Mountains, and beneath the magnificent New Mexican sky, has inspired an entirely new direction. I am having so much fun exploring abstraction, and have returned to creating in pastel and mixed media in addition to acrylic and oil.

A member of the Pastel Society of New Mexico, New Mexico State Committee of the National Museum of Women in the Arts , the Rio Grande Art Association, and the New Mexico Art League, you can find my art on Instagram (@carolynkgrady) and Facebook (carolyn.grady.54), as well as this site, Art.CarolynGrady.com.