M
ichael Freeman has had a bountiful career
in the arts, and his focus and interests
have been as wide-ranging as his art. He
began his university studies with the
hopes of becoming a painter, although after the
exposure to different disciplines during his first year
of school—painting, sculpting, printmaking, photog-
raphy and design—he shifted his artistic sensibilities
to a “practical” way of thinking and chose industrial
design as his major. He earned a bachelor of fine arts
at Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland,
New Zealand, in 1979. He then earned his master’s in
fine arts at the University of Illinois in 1981.
Freeman’s return to painting came as a gift from
his wife, Julie—as, indirectly, did his shift to pastel.
“On my 50th birthday, she bought me a set of acrylics
and an easel,” he says. “I started painting again and
fell in love with the freedom of simply producing myMICHAEL FREEMAN’S
ARTISTIC PATH HAS BEEN
LONG AND WINDING,
PROVIDING HIM WITH
AMPLE EXPERIENCES
THAT HAVE LANDED HIM
IN A MEDIUM HE LOVES.By Michael Woodson
APPROACH
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