INTRODUCTION

This book covers a wide range of artist Ann Dugan's creativity in an A-Z glossary format, allowing the readers to skip around, making their own connections between Ann’s different interests, loves and projects: A for Aprons, B for Bill, C for Collages, etc. The catalog includes over 100 color plates of Ann's drawings, prints, collages and collaborations. Texts include direct quotes from Ann, those written by her daughter Jessica and her husband Bill, and quotes about specific art works featured in the book by various Los Angeles artists and writers.



Ann began as a fashion design college student and housewife, but after an abrupt swerve in the mid-1970s led her to graduate school in printmaking, Ann said she grew up. She became an artist and therapist. She returned to her hometown of West Plains, Missouri, after twenty years away, and began an innovative art therapy program.



While Ann continued to help people and train therapists, she also did her art in every room of the house, in every corner of her farm and with anyone who came around. Her art was a mastery of mixing the least obvious things, like wearing a sixteen-year-old’s prom dress at the age of fifty-eight, using the juice from pokeberries for paint and insisting on befriending people who were uncomfortable with the symptoms of her Young Onset Parkinson’s. She loved life over and over again, despite her pain and limitations, and constantly asked herself, “How can I love it today?