Rosalise Olson
I am a retired attorney engaged in a second act. Painting is a joy and luxury for me. I love when someone see a painting of mine and says something like: I worked there; or I always wanted to go there; or what is that all about?
I grew up in Bayonne, New Jersey just across the Hudson from lower Manhattan. In elementary school my parent sent me to painting class in a basement of Mrs. Brown home. She was a wonderful painting and taught me how to mix colors and paint. I would go after school one night a week. I took every art class offered at Bayonne High School. I painting some at Jersey City State College and graduated with a teaching degree. I would travel into Manhattan spend full days viewing art in museums.
I moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico after I graduated from college. Unable to find a teaching job, I worked as a receptionist and secretary in a law firm in Albuquerque. I became a wife, mother and soon applied to the University of New Mexico Law School and became a practicing attorney. I stopped painting. I just didn’t have the time. I moved to Iowa in 1996 after my father-in-law passed away and my husband started farming. I worked as a prosecutor in Dickinson and Emmet County until I retired in 2019. I started painting again when I was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2008. Painting helped with the emotional toll cancer treatment takes. Now that I am retired from law, I paint on a regular basis. I am living my dream of being an artist. My subjects are eclectic. I paint what I see inside and outside my windows and in my mind.