Mary Kay West

Peonies and Star Gaze Lilies

2022

Mary Kay West was born in Asheville, North Carolina in 1954 to parents that encouraged her artistic expression from the earliest age. Her mother was an established watercolorist and father an intellectual academic. An idyllic childhood fell to a rebellious adolescence. West left home, moved across the United States, and became a mother herself at the age of sixteen. With only a 9th grade education and the responsibilities of early motherhood, she was able to complete her education. She obtained a Master of Arts Degree in Clinical and School Psychology and practiced for fourteen years. The artistic and creative urge finally came to the surface in the mid-1980’s when West became a clothing and accessory designer of wearable art that was carried by Macy’s and Nordstrom department stores. By 1990, world-famous fresco artist Benjamin F. Long IV moved to Asheville and opened an atelier to carry on the classical realist tradition. Mary Kay West was accepted as an apprentice and completed her studies specializing in Still Life and Landscape painting in 1994. That same year, she moved to Santa Barbara, California to be nearer her daughter. Since then, West’s work has been exhibited extensively in California, and is distinguished by her passion for birds as she portrays them in her inimitable trompe l’oeil style. Throughout West’s journey as a psychologist and as an artist, the practice and science of Yoga has been a constant. She has been an avid practitioner and teacher, rising to the level of master instructor. Her spiritual and metaphysical practice is the foundation of her creative expression. Mary Kay West now lives, practices, teaches and paints in Guadalupe, California.