Anne Easley was born in Waltham, Mass. in May 1949, the third of four
children. Anne's father, Page Smith, was an eminent historian of American History and taught at UCLA in the 1950's. In 1963 he became the founding Provost at UCSC, and the family moved to Santa Cruz. Anne's mother, Eloise Pickard Smith, was an artist who produced a prodigious body of work during her lifetime. She was appointed head of the California Arts Council and appointed an inspired board during her tenure. She continued her art advocacy by spearheading a program for quality arts education in the California State Prison system. She was also instrumental in creating the Cultural Council of Santa Cruz County. Anne's life has always had the consistent thread of her family’s involvement with the arts. All three of Anne's siblings are artists and she has admired their efforts on the behalf of artists, art organizations and arts education programs.

Anne received her BA in Art at Scripps College in Claremont, California in
1971. Shortly after graduating she married Dale Easley, a Classics and Philosophy Major from Pomona College. They moved to Santa Cruz and built a home in the Santa Cruz Mountains. In 1973 Anne began painting with pen and ink and watercolor on emptied eggshells and started a small business selling painted eggs through shows and fairs. Her tiny canvases soon branched out to include the eggshells of ostrich, geese, turkeys, peafowl, pheasants and guail, as well as chickens. Over the years her work has sold in Gumps Catalogs as well as galleries and shops from Los Angeles and New York to Paris and Japan. In 1983 Anne illustrated a small handbound book of The Pig-Tale by Lewis Carroll. The book was subsequently included in a show of handbound books at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. It is only in the last few years that Anne has moved from the rounded surfaces of eggshells onto more traditional flat paper and canvas surfaces for the main body of her artwork.

Throughout the last twenty plus years Anne has been involved in a wide
variety of art and community events and projects. In the early 1980's she
organized a benefit arts and crafts show for three consecutive years for
Shakespeare Santa Cruz. She has taught young artists through the Spectra program and was an art teacher at Artschool Santa Cruz in the mid-1980's. She has helped with the Cultural Council's Hearts for the Arts fundraiser as a volunteer every year since its inception. Anne was a board member of the William James Association in 1996 and is currently working to realize a community open space for art events and local performances in downtown Santa Cruz .

A partial list of museum and gallery shows of Anne's painted eggs:

The Egg and Eye Gallery, Los Angeles
Jackie Anahalt Gallery, La Cienega Blvd., Los Angeles
Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco
Gallery Fair, Mendocino
Cooper House Gallery, Santa Cruz
Pinehurst Galleries, Pinehurst, North Carolina
Julie Artisans Gallery, New York
Fabrice, Paris
Mori Museum, Hofu, Japan
Oakland Museum, Oakland Museum
Palm Springs Desert Museum, Palm Springs
San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose
Dandelion, San Francisco
Allies Arts Guild, Menlo Park
Anne has also shown her work in four consecutive Gumps Catalogs.

Art Awards:
Invitational Award, Tapestry and Talent, San Jose, 1991
Grand Prize, Half Moon Bay Pumpkin Festival, 1983
First Place, Art and Wine Festival, Los Gatos, 1980
First Prize, Affair in the Garden, Beverly Hills, 1979
First Prize, Fiesta del Artes, Los Gatos, 1975

Anne can be reached at fishman@cruzio.com

Visit Anne’s parents' web site at www.smithtrust.com