I was born in Brevard, NC, way back in the olden days but moved to Kings Mountain as a very small infant. Kings Mountain was my home until after I graduated from UNC Greensboro with a B.S. in Secretarial Administration. I had no clue about becoming an artist. Since “change” is one of the most permanent things in our universe, things progressed in the usual manner. I married Lt. Richard Maynard Snow, who was a fighter pilot in the Air Force. We moved many times during our marriage, but after World War II, we settled back in Kings Mountain.

As I stated before, things change, and once again we had to make a new life when Maynard was recalled to the Air Force during the Korean War. We lived many places, England, California, Topeka, Omaha, Florida, Boston, and some I care not to remember, but we survived and raised 2 daughters and 2 sons.

Until my husband’s retirement from the Air Force and my children were almost grown, I still had not picked up a paint brush. I had done volunteer teaching in many places. Some things I taught in underprivileged neighborhoods were sewing, tailoring, cake decorating, and other crafts. When we moved to Mount Airy, NC, that area had just been assigned a government program to make all of the arts more available to the local people. I decided to be a part of that scene and began to study with Abbe Rose Cox, a New York artist moved to NC. She was the first to put a brush in my hand. John Brady, a native NC artist also began teaching in the schools with adult classes in the evening. John’s classes were always just demonstrations and critiques of what we painted outside of class. John exposed us to many different types of supplies and techniques but allowed us to do our own paintings in our own way. That lead to my choosing various artists whose work I admired to be my instructors. Some people I had the privilege of studying with include Zoltan Szabo, Gerald Brommer, Stephen Quiller, Ruth Ogle, Carole Barnes, Carrie Brown, Carl Dalio, Marilyn Phyllis, Frank Webb, and several others. All of these people have had influence on my work and my life, but I give much credit to John Brady for sharing his immense knowledge of art and introducing me to this special world. He remained a very special friend until his death a few years ago.

I hope that I can share my knowledge and thoughts with others through my art. You may not see the same thing I had in mind when I created the piece but that is not important. You may find that you do not even like the piece. The important thing is that you paused for even a few seconds, saw a familiar place, thought a new thought, or even wondered what might have been going on in an artists mind. If any of these situations occurred, then I have been successful. A.B. Snow