Embrace The Journey

Ann Marie is an Asian American immigrant born in Metro Manila, the 6th child in a family of 12 siblings with Filipino, Chinese, Spanish ancestry. Her father was a successful businessman who died in his late 50's with her mother becoming the grand matriarch to the end of her life. Her paternal grandparents of Buddhist influence migrated to the Philippines from the Fujian province of China. She came to the United States at age 24 to exhibit her Indonesian Batik art and attend Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois for an MBA. She went on to a successful business career in San Francisco in financial leadership roles. She has won numerous art awards and was a finalist among 4000 entries in the renowned Artist magazine. Her art interest began in her teens studying Chinese painting on weekends at the historic Manila Hotel. She then learned the complex art of Indonesian Batiking using hot waxes on cloth which she applied to create Filipino inspired art. Her Batiks landed her in the United States for an exhibit and gala presentation that changed the course of her life. Retired from the corporate world, she took up the brush initially using oils as her medium, then on to experimental layering with mixed media. Her intuitive paintings are described to have "soul". She was a member of the California Watercolor Association and other art groups in Northern California. Her poetry emerged in the late 1990s and continued as an artistic pursuit through the decades. Married to an internationally acclaimed concert pianist, Gregory Taboloff, she also has an affinity for opera and classical music.