Mari Anne Figgins
was born in Pontiac, Michigan in 1947. From a young age she was
surrounded by creative influences. Her father Richard was an
industrial designer, and her mother Jane’s favorite hobby was
painting. She spent many summers as a child in art classes at
the Cranbook School of Design in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. In
the third grade, she had one of her oil paintings chosen to be
in a traveling art show, thus began Mari Anne’s art career.
Although Mari Anne enjoyed art classes throughout school, she
did not plan on being an artist. After her father told her that
a red dress did not go with her hair coloring she decided right
then and there she did not want to be an artist. In her eyes,
artists were too critical and picky about design, color and
layout yet she continued to work with various mediums.
After high school, Mari Anne attended Vernon Court Jr. College
in Newport, RI. She needed an additional extra curricular class
her first year and decided to take an oil painting class. The
instructor told her that she had, “a good feeling for color,”
and this statement changed the course of Mari Anne’s studies.
She decided to pursue a degree in Art. She transferred to
Western Michigan University and completed a degree in art
education and also received her degree in elementary education
in 1972.
Mari Anne spent the next several years teaching art and
elementary education in Michigan, Utah and Washington State. She
didn’t touch her paints during this time, until she went to her
first Western Art Show in Spokane, WA. There she saw an artist’s
work that really inspired her to pick up the brushes again. She
signed up for lessons shortly thereafter in her weakest medium,
watercolor. She struggled for about a year with her watercolors,
and then all of the sudden things started to click. Since she
was staying home with her daughter, she started painting all the
time. Soon she started doing more art shows and exhibiting in
additional galleries, which meant she needed to stop teaching
and just concentrate on her work.
The subjects of Mari Anne’s works range from animals, children,
front porches, barns, boats and flowers to whimsical holiday
scenes. She has been the featured artist for the St. Lukes
Rehabilitation hospital for the past 17 years, painting their
annual fundraiser poster. Also, she has painted the image for
the Ronald McDonald’s House polo classic fundraiser the past two
years in a row.
In addition to her professional art career, Mari Anne is also a
certified veterinary assistant for a large and small animal
veterinary hospital. She is a certified ski instructor and
coordinates an adaptive ski program at Mt. Spokane where she
works with physically challenged children and adults, assisting
them to ski. She has two grown daughters, one living in Idaho
and the other living in Maryland. She still resides in Spokane,
WA on her ranch where she has horses, llamas, goats, cats and
dogs that all model for her paintings.
