Throughout her life, however, Muse has scattered her artistic fire. "I wrote in the ‘70s, sculpted in the ‘80s, and returned to painting in the 90s," she says. "Art is another world. It is a reaction to this world that lets us enter other people’s reactions. Art lets me refresh my own spirit."

Muse states that her paintings have never been exactly representational. Her objective is to represent what she sees as expressions rather than in a strictly photographic sense. Mrs. Toad at Home, she says, "expressed how I felt. I felt enclosed in the home, as Mrs. Toad is. I was never happy ‘keeping house.’ This painting represents my inner and outer aspects; the ‘50s housewife closed in the home, conflicting with the artist struggling to get out." According to Muse, the freedom of her brushwork reflects this struggle. "I was letting my ‘role’ get in the way of my art, as my mother never did."

[artist biography by Sydney Pettus; artist photograph by Jennifer Leman]