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Growing up in a home filled with antiques, art, music, laughter and creative parents, it’s understandable that Denise had a passion for living. Her parents and their creativity heavily influenced Denise, developing an eye for beautiful and unusual illustrations. From her father, an aviation engineer, fine arts painter and photographer, Denise inherited her sense of proportion, line and color. From her mother, a musical pianist and medical secretary, she had a determination against all odds to follow her dreams.
When she was small, she spent her days dreaming, absorbing, and creating. Playing and allowing the creative to grow everyday in any medium she had at that moment. As she progressed through high school and college, Denise was encouraged by a continuous string of gifted teachers who quickly recognized that she was not only skilled at drawing but also philosophy, mathematics, and world history.
While an art major at Moore College of Art, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, she focused on painting, anatomy, art history, graphic design and fashion drawing, earning a BA in Art in1976. Her first design job was art directing for John Wanamaker’s and Gimbel’s in Philadelphia, PA, while still a senior in college.
In 1979, she a launched a small design business specializing in collateral for retail design. Soon Denise began to work as a freelance artist for many elite Madison and Park Avenue graphic design studios and ad agencies, creating catalogs, brochures, hang tags, logos, and illustrations for packaging. While freelancing in 1980, Denise became increasingly intrigued by the fine arts, to further her experience and to study with several world renowned painters as a scholarship student at the Art Student’s League.
