Marnie Fender’s love of the arts stems from an experience when she was a junior in high school.
“I was sick with mono for two months,” said Fender, Davisburg resident. “I found a paint box under my mom’s bed that had never been opened. My dad gave it to her as a present. She said I was welcome to use it.”
She painted during her recovery. Her first painting, a sailboat tossed on the sea, won her a gold ribbon in Scholastic competition.
“I felt the energy with that first experience,” she said. “The creative process gives me energy not found in anything else. It makes me fel more alive, and gives me a powerful boost.”
She continued with her art as a hobby at Carnegie Mellon University, earning a degree in Biomedical and Electrical Engineering, and in her manufacturing engineering career with General Motors.
In 2000, she and her husband were on vacation to Bar Harbor, Maine, when an art gallery owner invited her to send some of her work.
“She loved it,” Fender said.
She took classes, and sought and took advice from fellow artists.
“It took off from there,” she said.
She and artist Ginger Scobie, of Orchard Lake, a sculptor who works with clay, host a two-person exhibit, “Life Reflections,” at Cary Gallery in Rochester, Mich.
“Besides bringing together an interesting play of 2-D and 3-D work into the gallery space, we bring entirely different styles,” Fender said. “I tend to include realistic elements in my work, while Ginger’s pieces are more abstract.”
The two artists worked together before, hosting an exhibit in 2006 at Gallery 194 in Lapeer.
“I love the interplay of our work,” Scobie said. “We’re both very conceptual ? we’re very compatible.”
“Our work looks better when it’s together,” Fender said. “You get the best of both worlds,”
Fender and her husband, Norm, and their son Nate, 7, live in Davisburg, moving there 12 years ago.
The exhibit runs through Oct. 2 at the gallery, 226 Walnut Boulevard, Rochester.
For more information, check www.tagastists.com