Debra Pollard works in multiple media—melted crayon, acrylic and oil painting, beading, quilting, printmaking, 2-D and 3-D mixed media. Her art is influenced by her experiences of the world’s cultural traditions, the faces of people, and the grandeur of life.
Born a true "California Girl," Debra has traveled a varied road professionally through education and corporate America, but she’s always stayed true to her passion for art.
With encouragement from her father, her grandfather, and a middle-school teacher, Debra dove deep into art education in high school and college, graduating with a bachelor’s of fine arts and two master’s degrees. She enjoyed a rewarding, twenty-year career teaching art in Los Angeles–area high schools and community colleges. At the same time, she expressed her own artistic talents in watercolor, acrylic, and oil painting as well as printmaking. In 1982, she presented her first one-woman show in a series of watercolors in Burbank, California, and received excellent reviews. Since then, she has sold her work in a range of media.
In 1989, Debra moved to Bellevue, Washington, where she entered the corporate world, working for Microsoft, initially as a graphic artist. Over the next nearly twenty-two years, she worked in various areas of corporate education and strategic thinking, always using her creativity as a problem solver and forward-thinking contributor. During this time, she never stopped painting or creating.
In 2014, she retired from Microsoft and has immersed herself in her art at her studio in Montana.