"Back Lash"
Ballet Art - Silver Prints
Taken over a ten year period at Ballet Arts Minnesota, Hennepin Center for the Arts, Minneapolis.
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY
Polly Norman was born and raised in South Minneapolis on West Minnehaha Parkway. Her family moved to Edina when she was 12 years old. She is a graduate of Edina High School and Abbott-Northwestern School of Nursing. She worked in nursing (Neonatal Intensive Care) for four years at Children's Hospital. She married, had two sons and stayed home to raise them.
Norman began her photography career by volunteering to do public relations photography/writing for Our Lady of Grace School in Edina, where her sons were students. When the OLG community saw her photography, individuals began asking if she did portraits. She began taking pictures for private clients and attending photography seminars. Since then, Norman has run a residential studio for over fifteen years. Her career expanded into many areas including legal/evidence photography, photo illustration for newspaper and magazine articles and commercial/advertising photography.
As her photography progressed, she also started to do fine art photography and hand-coloring. This led to a growing desire to paint on blank canvas instead of an existing photo.
Norman has been painting for the past four years. She says because of all she learned as a photographer/hand colorist and because she grew up in an artistic family where she had an opportunity to work in various media, extending herself to painting was a natural choice.
Norman took various art courses in junior high and high school. Her parents had she and her three siblings train in piano and signed her up for various art courses at the Walker Art Center and semi-private painting lessons at a studio in Edina.
Norman's two brothers are musicians--her younger brother is also an artist/graphic designer. Her sister is a pathologist and has interest in continuing piano study. Her father is a published short story (fiction) and essay writer.
Norman says,
"One of my fondest childhood memories was when dad would pack the car with canvas boards, brushes and paints and take the four of us out to the country to paint a landscape, usually a farm scene.
He would set up easels for us and away we would go! The five of us would paint the same scene and come up with very different results. I had a shining moment during one of those sessions.
As a child I felt I could never do anything as well as my older brother. When we were out painting one afternoon, he kept looking back-and-forth at my half-done painting and his. He finally asked me if I would trade paintings with him. I glowed!
Part of permanent collection Reinhardt & Anderson Law Firm, St. Paul, Minnesota
Painter, Photographer
"Garden Party"
Under the Surface
Raucous Daytime
"Fallen Pansies"
"Red Screamers"
The Back Door
"Lifesavers"
"Red Sky, City Night"
Blue-lit Drama
Arbor Flaunt
"Lifesavers" DETAIL
"Face Float Over Imaginary Island"
"Popped Poppies"
"Daisy"
"Rose"
"Underwater Rampage"
Detail: "Underwater Rampage"
"Mirrored Masks, Nose to Nose"
"Mirrored Masks, Nose to Nose" DETAIL
"Floating Lily, Magic Wand"
"Prehistoric Ride Through a Lavender Sky"
"White Cloaked Ruler"
"Yin & Yang"
"Wide-Eyed"
Mad Cap
"The Pianist"
"The Slayer"
"Odd Couple-Kats"
"Sacrifice"
Elements
Eclipse
Circus
The Violinist
The Acrobat
Properly Seated
Triad
"Smile Down"
Hidden Treasures
Spirits
Rose Hip
Abstractions
The Basement Athlete
Thought Field Boughs
Plantasia Green
Orange Arches
Concentric Masquerade
Technicolor
Celebrated Humility
Intersection
Upstream Pandemonium
Seasons In Four
The Storm Chaser
Parade In Pixel
Dreamscape
Upsweep
City Scape
The Angry Tree
Pod
One-Eyed Flurry
Timeless Leap
Clones
Backlash
Prism Dancer
Window Dancer
En Pointe
Dancing Droogs I
Dancing Droogs II
Canyon Road
Rock Dance
Benchmark Solitude
Effaced
"Popped Poppies"
"Blue Daisy, Stem Down"
"Coral Ruler"
"Popped Poppies"
"Butterflies on Bloom"
"Countryside Spring"
"Interior Flight"
"Parade in Pixels"
"Tree, Hare, Bear"
"Revel"
"Sprung"
"Blue Daisy, Stem Down"
Labyrinth
"Magnolias on Black"