Welcome to the official site of June Safford
Brought up in a Swedish immigrant family in Brooklyn, NY, I happened to live within walking distance of the Brooklyn Museum. It was within those walls that I first encountered a wide variety of art genres, especially paintings. My eyes were opened to how humans held the capacity to produce art. When I attended a local, all-girls public high school which offered a diploma in art, I went for it. I enjoyed two years of four periods of art a day under the tutelage of art Instructor, Ms. Mc Entee. By that time I had become very adept with pencils, charcoal, ink, pens, and tempera paints. Even in high school I did charcoal drawings of a nude model. My dream of attending college required I drop this art diploma idea and prepare for an academic one.
While at Wagner College on Staten Island I took only one Watercolor class taught by an obscure member of the so-called New York School of artists, professor Tom Young. From then on, my growth as an artist depended on my personal dedication to drawing and painting and to workshops held in town, though for one I did travel to Sedona, AZ. For many years I was privileged to have been mentored by artist Diana Tremaine in her Bozeman studio.
What kept me pursuing art had to do with its appeal to my psyche. I look back on days and years my husband and I did some ranching: horses, cows, sheep, chickens and hogs, a small spread but big as far as demands on our energy. We had four children and on several occasions we took in a foreign student. I worked as an English teacher but I always found time for art. My Montana surroundings were like the sirens in Greek Mythology. I was always lured to draw or paint. To this day, despite age, art remains a steadfast commitment.