About The Artist

Annette drew all the time as a child, but wasn’t able to obtain formal art training until she was an adult. She married young, at 19, had her daughter at 23, and at the age of 25 went to college to study art. It took her eight years of juggling marriage, motherhood, work, and school to earn her B.A. in Art, but despite the workload, she loved every minute of those eight years.

Once she graduated from college, Annette painted as often as she could, working primarily in watercolor, but marriage, child rearing, and the need to earn a regular paycheck kept her from focusing full-time on an art career (a story common to most artists).

Two years after she graduated from college, Annette, her husband, and daughter, moved to the Pacific Northwest where she continued to paint while still working full time. She spent a number of years at Microsoft as a project manager in various graphic-design groups.

During this time, she painted regularly and took workshops taught by talented artists such as Arne Westerman, Katherine Chang Liu, Tom Lynch, Betty Jo Fitzgerald, Chuck Webster, Bart Rulon, Rudy Coffing, SueEllen Ross, Carla O’Connor, and others.

Annette had always wanted to do portrait commissions, but her busy schedule prevented her from doing that because of the extensive amount of time it takes to complete a portrait commission. She did find the time to paint portraits of some of her family members and a friend, though (see the Portrait Gallery).

In March 2007, their daughter grown, Annette and her husband moved to Salisbury, NC, where she set up her art studio in the Rail Wall Arts District in an old warehouse that had been converted to artists' studios. She is now doing what she has wanted to do all her adult life: work full time as an artist. In addition to her fine art, Annette accepts portrait commissions and has completed a number of them.

Artist Statement

I've always been fascinated by the human face and form. I believe that the greatest challenge in painting portraits is to get both the spirit and the likeness of the subject. If you don't have both, the portrait is a figure painting. It can be beautiful and wonderful to look at, but it's not a portrait of a specific person unless it has those dual qualities.

-Annette Ragone Hall