Blue Autumn::Bio

Welcome. In creating this website with the help of my husbandSilver, I have tried to remain loyal to who I am. I do not wish to tout myself as some pretentious artist-poet-seeker type, though elements of all those personalities run through me. Really I'm just me; I don't have a whole lot to hide and I make no mistake of seeing myself as something greater than I am. So I will just tell it like it is.

My full name is Gena Sari Schwam and I was born and raised in Queens, NY (Forest Hills to be specific). I lived in the same small apartment with my other three family members until I was 18. I left home in 1994 to attend Smith College in Northampton, MA. I wasn't necessarily prepared at that point to go to a women's college and deal with a single-sex education. Initially it felt like I had taken on more than I could handle but I quickly changed my mind. The support, spiritual nurturing and self-confidence I gained from my professors and peers is irreplaceable in my life and I will never regret my decision. I earned a B.A. in Art History in May, 1998.

I'm an artist. There's something about admitting this that seems false to me since I am not currently practicing as such. But art has permeated my life in other ways, and continues to do so. I am currently the Interim Curator of Art at the Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture in Spokane, WA. How did I get to this point? What paths did my life take to get me here? I can only look back and reflect on decisions that were made for me or by me and choices I didn't always have.

I started drawing and writing at an early age. Being born into a family of accomplished musicians isn't easy when you don't learn how to play an intrument and your talent seems to manifest itself in visual, rather than auditory, expression. I was named after my grandfather, the late George Ockner, lead violin for the Glenn Miller Orchestra Band. I suppose I was to follow some sort of legacy but that never happened. I went off on my own path and I was very lucky that my parents didn't try to push me to be something like a doctor or lawyer. They could see that I had my own life to live and they let me do just that.

One of the best and most blessed gifts life gave me was the opportunity to attend Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and the Performing Arts in New York's Lincoln Center. You have to audition to get into one of the 5 disciplines (art, drama, dance, instrumental, vocal) and for art, you have to show a portfolio. My good friend Tara and I spent a while in 7th and 8th grade painting together like Bob Ross wannabees and in the 8th grade our art teacher Ms. Machado helped us prepare our audition portfolios. We both got into LaGuardia for studio art and left junior high after 8th grade to begin four years at LaGuardia. I guess up until this point I had led sort of a quiet sheltered little Forest Hills life. I never rode the subway much except to go into a museum with my parents every now and then. Going to school in Manhattan meant I'd have to get used to NY's confusing and crazy subway system and ride it on a daily basis to and from Queens. It was scary at first but I found a group of people to travel with.

By senior year I had been initiated, for better or worse, into the evils and chaos of commuting underground. It was a 45 minute subway ride to and from school every day and I had to wake up at 5:30. Even though it was a struggle looking back, I don't regret a second of that experience. LaGuardia gave me the training and foundation I needed to be a visual artist, and the support and comeraderie I craved to be able to express myself. In junior and senior years, I was a member of the school's literary magazine, The Lively Arts. At this point I was just really beginning to take writing seriously and I was able to have several poems published in the mag. I got to work with people who thought like I did and made some fast friends. Overall, leaving LaGuardia and moving on to college wasn't easy, but I was now well prepared to do so.

Here are some self portraits I did in college:

Untitled Self Portrait 1

Untitled Self Portrait 2

Untitled Self Portrait 3

I met Silver in 1996. It was the summer and I was working on campus in the computer labs. We became friends over the next two years, talking online and getting together. I even took a class at Hampshire College, where he was going to school. He went back to Los Angeles, where he's from, in fall 97 and took a semester off. When he returned in Jan. 98 things were just right and we got together. We've been together as a couple ever since. He's a great guy..a musician, artist and computer programmer at Adrenium Studios. We've come a long way together and we got married in May 2002 on Long Island, NY. We compliment each other extremely well and we enjoy the same things.

Our latest news is that we've moved to Kirkland, WA on the east side of Seattle. We arrived in Oct. 2002 and set ourselves up in a sweet 2 bedroom apartment. We also adopted 2 wonderfully awesome cats, named Solomon and Lazarus. I will have to make a page just for them with tons of pictures and stories. They've changed my little world and opened up my heart. I hope to spend a bit of time updating this site little by little. I also hope to be employed before too long!!

Some Random Facts About Me:

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