In kindergarten and first grade, Sally Everhardus and her friend Susan were going to be illustrator and author of children’s books when they “grew up.” Although Sally hasn’t seen Susan since they graduated from 3rd grade, she has pursued art and craft throughout her life.
A graduate of the University of Michigan’s School of Art with a minor in art and architectural history, Sally supported herself as an illustrator while putting herself through school in the dark ages before computer-generated charts, graphs and sine waves. Her artistic masterpieces like mapping
aggressive behaviors between adult catfish and drug uptake channels of ara-A may be found in doctoral dissertation archives.
An avid seamstress since the age of four when she learned to
sew on her grandmother’s treadle machine, she built
costumes for and performed in theatre productions in SE
Michigan. A devotee of portable projects, she from time to
time knits, crochets, stitches crewel and needlepoint, makes
baskets, refinishes furniture, makes mosaic garden objects
and clothing and repairs her aging wardrobe. Major capital
projects have included roofing, electrical work and installing
hardwood floors. In collegiate financial extremis, she rebuilt
the engine on her beloved MG Midget twice. Primary
obsessions outside of art have been travel, playing polo,
riding dressage and working in her garden. She recently
obtained her Master Gardener certification and designed the
edible demonstration garden at the Peninsula Research
Station in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin.
Her career has taken her from Ann Arbor to the San
Francisco Bay area, western Illinois, St. Louis and Door
County. Positions have included sales and management for a
division of Xerox to school and theatre fundraising and
management of a large arts funding organization and an art
school. With friends spread across the country, Sally pursues
her original goal sporadically and vicariously though
exhibition attendance, reading voraciously and painting in
watercolor and pastel, especially when the weather is good.
In the winter she uses pastels en plein air outfitted with Bob
Cratchit gloves.
She has exhibited at Paint Box Gallery, Peninsula Art School,
Missouri Watercolor Society’s annual invitational, the
Appleton Art Center, The Bridge, Charlene’s Gallery Ten and
of course, at street fairs. She was recently invited to be an exhibiting
artist at the new Jack Richeson Gallery in Kimberly,
Wisconsin. Her work is in collections in Missouri,
Pennsylvania, New Mexico, Indiana, Illinois, Florida,
California, Wisconsin and Michigan.
She currently shares her life with Suzy Q the ADHD canine
poster child and Trudy McNasty, the cat who only has eyes
for her.
