We asked Cynthia to tell us a bit about her creativity, her marvelous techniques, and how they impacted her work.

This is what she wrote:

“It was a common occurrence for me to come home from school and find my mother standing behind her easel in the kitchen, paints, brushes and turpentine spread out on the counter beside her, the ingredients for her own nourishing concoction.  

And so it was that painting was de-mystified for me at an early age such that I never thought about taking art classes at Middlebury when there were many other things I knew nothing about, so much new to learn. 

Ironically, it was David Bumbeck, years later, who started me on the path that would lead me to my professional life as a painter.  We ran into each other in the dentist's office, his cheeks swollen with Novocain, and he invited me to audit his print making class at the college.  The days and hours coincided with my son's pre-school times, so it was easy for me to attend class and very soon I was completely hooked, especially once we started to make multiple plate etchings where color was involved.  In transferring the line drawing from one plate to the others, a very good piece of paper is used which, in the end, has a "ghost" of the drawing on it.  I couldn't stand the waste and began to paint over the ghosts, often in gouache with pastels on top of that.  In time, I began to make oil paintings of these same images and my working style was in place - working smaller in pastels and then taking that image - or the idea of that image - to a larger oil canvas.   

I was lucky to have a successful career as a painter, and in the 90's went looking for a way to reproduce some of my paintings such that they would be more affordable.  In researching what method would best suit my images, I discovered a digital print-making studio on the other side of the state, where I spent a week learning and making.   Once home, I bought a large format printer and began making prints of my work as a natural part of my process. 

A series of events lead to my moving to Mexico in 2002 to be the managing partner in a small hotel in San Miguel de Allende. I thought I would be primarily a painter who had a hotel.  That illusion was soon dashed, and the time I could give to painting became less and less. 

When time opened up for me again, I found myself returning to the digital form where I can come and go from the work, where there is no mess to clean up, and where one image can have literally infinite possibilities. I primarily use Photoshop and Topaz Studio to manipulate the images through various color choices and filters.  

I also began taking photographs with which I also could play, loving especially working in black and white.  Once I found a company here in Mexico that prints the images in a range of sizes at a very affordable price, I found myself, once again, with a studio full of canvases.”

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