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Gay has spent most of her life ripping up her paintings in search of the artist within. Her art training started at the famous "Tam O Shanter" art classes at Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh, the same classes where Andy Warhol got his early training. She minored in art at Kent State University but instead pursued a "more practical" career in writing and communications, consulting to companies such as Kodak, Gucci, 3M, BP Amoco and IBM.

But art never left her life for even a moment. She started collecting art right after college, spent hours in museums all over the United States and Europe, and surrounded herself with artists wherever she lived. In Los Angeles, she was accepted into the first docent class at the Getty Museum, which the Los Angeles Times said was "harder to get into than Harvard." She also worked as a "grass engineer" on Liza Lou's incredible beaded Back Yard.

During the 18 years she lived in Boston and Newburyport, she was inspired by Massachusetts and Maine artsits she met like Frank Corso, Lucinda Cathcart, Heidi Daub, Meg Payson Brown, Eric Hopkins, Dale Weiler, Cathy Boucher and especially Karen Tusinski.

Her monoprint goddess is Diana Gonzalez Gandolfi, and her idol of idols (whom she never met or collected) is Richard Diebenkorn.

It wasn't until Gay took a detour from the corporate world and moved to Arizona that she finally found the artist screaming to get out. Gay makes wearable art and steel sculpture, but it's printmaking that lets her explore the textures and colors she craves.

Refreshed and rejunvenated after four years in the desert, Gay is happily ensconced back in Los Angeles, writing and making art.

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