She enjoyed painting her new project, Remembering the past and looking forward to a beautiful future. She LOVES the title of new magazine “ARTistry Today”….. It says so much. 

She has been painting and teaching since 1960-61. She lived in Kansas City at that time. She was invited to attend a painting class with a friend. There were teachers on every other corner at that time teaching out of their homes. There were also three beautiful shops in the Kansas City area. 

The Cambridge House, Ye Ole Print Shop and The Tole House. At this time the art form was called tole painting. She took 8 classes and as her neighbors saw what she was doing they wanted her to show them thus the teaching around her kitchen table began. Soon after She moved to Bartlesville, Oklahoma and then on to Arlington, Texas. She continued teaching along the way. She was growing fast in her garage and loved the teaching. Needing more room and a place to get supplies She opened a little shop with one of her students, Peggy Hobbs.

They continued to grow and moved one more time before purchasing an old two-story house in Arlington, Texas and that is when The Village Tole House was born. They owned the Village Tole House about ten years. They had 5 teachers including Peggy and herself. As her students grew in their painting, they asked them to teach. At our prime we had five hundred students a week. They had 4 classrooms with classes morning, afternoon and evening and they were always full. In addition to the 4 painting classrooms, they had a classroom where they taught quilling and 18th century decoupage. 

Mary Jo also had a beautiful retail area. In 1972 Priscilla Hauser asked her to join a group with her in Tulsa, Oklahoma, hoping to do something with other painters. There were 22 of us at that meeting and before we disbanded, they had formed the National Society of Tole and Decorative Painters. They even set up the Certification Program with 3 judges and three pieces to be submitted for judging at the inaugural meeting to be held in the spring in Kansas City. She was elected Vice President at that meeting and was responsible for collecting all the memberships and for putting together all the communication to the members for the next 2 years. I did 2 newsletters before it became a magazine. She named it The Decorative Painter with the approval of the Board. I continued as editor of The Decorative Painter until 1993 when she resigned. She loved watching the Society grow from 22 to 35,000 international members in 1993.During that time her husband,  Harold and her also moved to Pleasanton, Kansas in 1984. They built their home including a studio where students from all over came to study with me for a week at a time at Cedar Crest Country Studio of Decorative Art. 

Her family has always been involved in the painting with her from the very beginning. She continue to paint daily. She has traveled across the United States including several countries. Teaching is what She loves. She became a teacher from the beginning, a designer, author of 20 plus instructional books, crossed the paths of thousands of painters making beautiful lifetime friendships all over the world.

You never know where that first class will take you. She has enjoyed 60 plus years of joy creating and sharing.

Remembering the past and looking forward to a beautiful future!!