Deborah Bays
Biography
Deborah Bays has been blessed with a life in the Arts. She was born in Nashville, Tennessee in 1951 and spent her early years in the formal study of music, playing violin and viola. In college her focus shifted to her first love, that of making visual art. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in Costume Design for the Theater at the University of Texas at Austin then went on to complete a Master of Arts in Scenography at Purdue University. She settled in Denver and for two and one half decades designed costumes and sets for Regional Repertory Theater, The Hong Kong Repertory Theater, The Colorado Shakespeare Festival, Harrahıs, Off Broadway and Public Television.
After so many years of making art as a member of a team she longed for a more personal expression. This led her to study drawing and painting with many fine artists and teachers at the Art Studentıs League of Denver. While she still has a passion for both theater and music, nothing has proved as profound a challenge or as rewarding as painting. Her favorite medium is pastel and her favorite subject is light revealing form and conversely form revealing light.
Her work has been featured in Southwest Art and The Pastel Journal where she received The Pastel Journal Grand Prize Award in the 2004 Pastel 100. She was featured in The Artistıs Magazine, December 2005 for winning the First Place Award for still life in the 22nd Annual Art Competition. One of her paintings is included in Pure Color: The Best of Pastel published by North Light Books and she has contributed a pastel painting demonstration to Painting with Pastels written by Maggie Price. She has exhibited paintings at the Pastel Society of America Annual Pastel Exhibitions in New York winning awards and having a painting chosen to represent the PSA at The Butler Institute of American Art. Her work is represented by galleries on both coasts as well as in Colorado. Somerset House Publishing is currently offering selected paintings reproduced as fine art prints.
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