Unexpected Gifts

Art in Childhood

Anna grew up with strong artistic influences. Her paternal grandmother, [Zofia Dembowska Romer] , (affectionately called Bunia) was a very talented artist and Anna’s house growing up was full of her grandmother’s artwork. Years later, Anna realized that what she had internalized was that if her Bunia was an artist, then she was not. Surrounded by so much talent, Anna deduced that she must not be worthy of also being called an artist; so, even as she was deeply involved in arts and crafts- ceramics, quilting, silk screen and just making things. This comfort with creating came from Anna’s mother who was an amazing art educator with a special talent for design. Luckily, she shared her passion with her children. When Anna was a young girl, she remembers doing art projects alongside her mother. Whatever her mom was doing, there was a version of that for Anna and her brother. Anna said, “I didn’t have a formal art education, but it came through my pores.” In college, she ran an arts and crafts program at a summer camp. But all of this was “on the side” and never did she consider it a career option or something to take seriously.

Parents’ Deaths — pivotal moments for Anna’s art

Anna’s parents separated when she was 11 years old and divorced two years later.  Her mom was American and her father, a Polish Lithuanian immigrant who spent the rest of his life in Belgium.

Anna’s Mom died in 2013, at that point Anna recalls thinking “I couldn’t imagine a future for myself;” It had been many years of caring for her Mom who had Alzheimer’s, juggling work, parenting, and family life. After watching Anna become so depleted by the intensive care of her Mom, Anna’s cousin gave Anna a very thoughtful gift of some private watercolor classes with Imadiel Ariel who taught her so much about color and color mixing. Getting back to creating was just what Anna needed.

In retirement in the 1990s, Anna’s father found his most meaningful work; he worked with museums and curators to restore his mother’s artistic reputation in Lithuania and Poland, countries which had preciously been “behind the Iron Curtain” so that art world had not valued her work, given her bourgeois origins. He helped organize solo shows of her work in Kaunas and Vilnius in independent Lithuania, in Warsaw, Poland and later in Cairo, Egypt where she had lived during the end of WW2. Anna’s dad died in 2018, 4 days short of his 97th birthday. Anna told me “Something shifted dramatically in my head when my dad died. Suddenly I knew that this artistic impulse was in me and had to come out. It was either going to therapy or devoting myself to art.” As she trusted her heart and started creating more, she had bursts of inspiration and confidence. The timing was right — all 6 of her and her husband’s parents and stepparents were gone; and their kids were launched, too. “I just went like a fish to water and have been going ever since.”

Cards and calendars

When Anna began creating again as an adult with young children, she started making cards and calendars to gift to family and close friends each year. Handmade cards did not involve a lot of space and could be squeezed into the busy parenting schedule. Anna worked mostly in collage. She started by ripping, cutting, and pasting papers from past projects. Although I think people would buy these cards and calendars, Anna was not interested in selling them. “My work is freer because I do not have to make money” Anna said. With very positive feedback from family and friends who received her cards and yearly printed calendars, it encouraged her to take her art more seriously.

Retirement for Anna

Anna retired early in July 2020 in part to devote herself to this new artistic phase of her life. When her father died, she asked herself what she would do if she could do anything she wanted. At first, she thought the answer was to go to art school. Then she thought, “I don’t need another degree” and started taking classes at different locations. Anna has a commitment to make art most every weekday morning. “When you are motivated, it happens!”

Anna had many of her works of art on the walls of her beautiful, sunshine-drenched home. One that caught my eye immediately was a collaged waterfall. She told me it was a memory from the central part of Baxter State Park. Anna did this piece completely from memory; clearly the beauty and the feeling of standing in front of that waterfall were strong in her mind.

In February 2026, Anna got a small printing press and, as an empty nester, with her family’s help was able to clear a former bedroom and set up a printmaking studio. For the past three years, she has been focused almost exclusively on woodcut printmaking, working initially with Annie Silverman, and later with Julie Lapping Rivera. And now, with her own press at home, she is free to draw and carve woodcuts, and print on her own schedule.

Solo exhibition at Framingham Public Library 

In 2023, Anna had her work on view publicly (Framingham Public Library) for the first time; the title of her solo Exhibition was Unexpected Gifts. This is a reference to how lucky she feels to have the space and time to make art. And perhaps this is also a reference to tapping into her unexpected gifts as an artist.