Biography 2014

I graduated from the University of Washington and received a BA in Art in 1967. Before that time I lived outside the United States with my parents for most of the years I was growing up. I had several meaningful Art experiences when I was young that contributed to my narrative as an artist and painter. I lived in the Philippines, Hawaii, India, Pakistan, Chile, SA, and on Okinawa for summer vacations while attending the University of Washington.

Many of my current painting themes have roots in the particular character of the Northwest. For 32 years I lived in Oregon, where I worked and raised a family. Along the way I completed a degree in Art Education. I was a substitute teacher and taught art classes for the gifted at the Art Center in Corvallis. I became a “Born Again Artist” in 1998, when I quit my job, rediscovered myself as an artist, and started painting again. With the gift of time I have been able to pursue my expression.

I am primarily an oil painter who also paints in watercolor as well as acrylics. I do collages, and am re-connecting with printmaking.

I have internalized the landscape and mood of the Northwest: the agricultural fields, vineyards, gray days, beautiful landscapes and the Coast. I painted what was around me in Oregon. Now living in Washington since 2004, I am again painting the environment in which I live. I have a cabin on Hammersley Inlet that keeps me watching the water. I paint the places where I walk that connect to my life and roots. I am connected to Seattle by history, family and place, to what I see and paint.

My grandparents were immigrants to Seattle in the early 1900’s. My grandfather was a designer and builder of fine fishing craft and had a shipyard in Ballard before he became superintendent of Fishing Vessel Owners Marine Ways and continued to design and construct ships for the Fishing industry into the 1930’s.

My painting “Ballard Docks I“ was chosen for the cover of the Nordic Heritage Museum publication of 2012 “Voices of Ballard and Beyond”. Painting is a way of sharing the experiences that have touched me and generate a creative response. I live, and become other than who I am in the images that I create.

Signe Heggem Davis