Abbie Read
I grew up in New England then lived in several different M states (and one W) around the country before moving back to New England and permanently to Maine in 1998 with my husband Bart. I graduated from Oberlin College in 1978 where I earned a BA in art history and studio art and years later got my MFA in Mixed Media from the University of Michigan School of Art. From 1983 until 1989 I taught painting and printmaking at Concord Academy in Concord, MA. Art and teaching art have been my life though over the years I have sometimes practiced both in ways other than being in a studio or classroom. In 1991, feeling as passionate about making gardens and thinking about garden design as I am about visual art and design, I started ARTgarden, a landscape garden design and installation business. As a studio artist my work shifts easily between two and three dimensions, always evolving, staying fluid and experimental, with ideas coming and going, growing seasonally then going dormant for awhile, very much like a garden. My work almost always makes use of found, recycled and cast off items in addition to paper and paint.
