Like most artists, I grew up making pictures, but it wasn't until my mid-forties that I undertook a formal education in drawing and painting. I returned to school in 1995 and earned an M.F.A. from the University of North Carolina in Greensboro in 2002. After teaching introductory drawing and art history courses there for several years, I shifted my artistic focus to my home studio where I am now working on the illustrations for a children's book I co-wrote with my son L.M. Oliver.