I have drawn pictures almost all my life. My mother and father instilled my love for creativity and encouraged my incessant wonder of the world around me. My teachers honed that love and wonder from kindergarten through college, where I illustrated my way through a B.A. in biology and learned that my desire to be a surgeon was overshadowed by my need to be an artist. I am forever indebted to those formative years.

For 25 years, guidance and encouragement came from dear friend and mentor, Don R. Eckelberry. He invited me to the Asa Wright Nature Center in Trinidad, West Indies, where he taught me how to sketch and paint birds from life, changing forever how I observed the world. His death on January 14, 2001 left many of his protégés momentarily adrift. When we gathered to celebrate his life – his artistic gift – we determined to move ahead as mature artists, pushing the limits of creativity. Eckelberry’s voice still haunts my studio, daring me to break rules and old clichés in art…always urging me to see Nature on her own terms and be guided by it.

On November 30, 1974, I married John Confer, an Ithaca College professor, aquatic ecologist, and ornithologist. Having no idea what life with an artist would mean he introduced me to the world of birds, luring me into their magic. Now, birds and all that relate to them consume our professional and personal lives. We have shared our passions on wilderness canoe treks in NW Ontario and northern Saskatchewan and on censuses of wildlife on the Hudson Bay Lowlands. I have soloed to draw seabirds on islands off the coast of Maine and Newfoundland. Everywhere we travel, we learn and are inspired.

I have come to believe that Nature tells its own story, that science is tied inexorably to Art – both requiring great observational skills and both seeking truth – leading to a marriage which is the catalyst for an environmental ethic critical to survival of Earth. I hope my art reflects the knowledge, responsibility, and passion that all influence my interpretations of birds in Art.