This is a younger me in a ballgown I made out of a spinnaker I helped destroy during a sailboat race.

I’ve made my living as a full time freelance painter and designer for over forty years. (Last paycheck job was in 1982.) For thirty of those years I rented a funky gold-rush era building in the artsy, waterfront town of Benicia in Northern California. A developer kicked me out of The World Headquarters of Me in 2017 as the dirt below had become more valuable than my art gallery, studio, gardens and bedroom with a view all the way to the San Francisco Bay. I packed a container and moved to the Hudson Valley in New York.

Two years later on a whim I booked a session with a hypnotherapist and walked out thinking, Well that was $75 for sitting in a chair relaxing I’ll never get back. The very next morning I woke up and the book I had been wanting to write for twenty years was talking to me. Some of the voices were dogs disguised as spirit guides. Some were unlovely ex boyfriends. One was my quirky dead mom. I picked up a notebook and a pen. A year later I indie published The Incompetent Psychic. Then I spent Covid vacation posting all the paintings that inspired the stories here on Medium, because my artwork could be shared in glorious full color pixels for a whole lot cheaper than printing all those paintings in ink. Cheaper for me and you.

After seven winters I left the dank, frozen woods of Woodstock to chase the sun to brighter landscapes in Tucson AZ where I'll continue to write, teach paint and grow veggies. Recent art is mostly maps & drawings of the starship I built for a sci fi novel in the works. Goal is to save the world without leaving my house. Not yet sure how it ends… or when. Check back sometime. My website is mernie.com.

Meanwhile… signed copies of my memoir are available in my Etsy shop ArtByMernie. Lots of framed and unframed paintings there, too.