“Art is my creative meditation of me when I’m not paying attention. Art is me when I’m not looking.”

Michelle Parker creates art based on a collection of visual experience and a lifetime of gathered memories. Her artistic process began early as she was given the opportunity as a child to explore with freedom and imagination.

Michelle was born and raised in the West Valley of Arizona before the desert became a city. The opportunity to see vase amounts of the United States expanded her horizons, yet always led her back to Arizona. Michelle graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from ASU and began working as a Critical Care Nurse. She married Todd in 1986, and together they have two grown children. Michelle and her family bought a home and moved to Paradise Valley in 1993. It was when the children were in the Scottsdale School system that Michelle assisted in the development of the Fine Arts Program taught to the students at Cherokee Elementary School and others in the East Valley. Her first piece of artwork, originally done to decorate the walls of their own home started a growing list of commissioned clients in various art media and genre.

All of Michelle’s art is emotive in nature. She is self taught, she does not limit herself to any one type of medium nor size of canvas. A common thread runs through all of her art, whether large or small, bold strokes of paint or precise lines of ink, in that they convey passion and movement.

Michelle’s work can be found in many private residences and corporations throughout the United States.

Somewhere between the careers of critical nursing and parenting, I began to paint. The passion for science and art seemed to pair naturally. Science explains feeling, while art transmits it.

Everything I create has purpose, yet I create with abandon. I was given the opportunity of space and uncluttered time from a very young age and that is what I draw my creativity from. Once the impulse to create is there, my mind settles as I put a brush to canvas. Some ideas are quick to emerge. Others are carried with me and brought to life when the moment is right.

Art follows the cadence of my life, where I act out my feelings and emotions. I do not believe that an artist must have tedious experiences to have freedom or success. I am not tempted to follow the rules of art, yet the not following makes me feel more vulnerable. Losing myself as I create is exquisite. It is truly when time becomes nothing and nothing becomes art. I suppose I create art much like I life my life. Welcome to my world!