Brenda began her love affair with the Grand Canyon on Thanksgiving Day in 1970 when she and her sister first hiked five miles down the Bright Angel Trail to Indian Gardens. It was a life-changing experience on many levels. Ten years later, when she began painting again she made her first painting of the Canyon and it has been a dominant theme of her art throughout her painting life.  Art was a very important part of her early years. Her mother, while teaching private art classes, encouraged Brenda to paint her first oil painting at age five. This early introduction to the process of sketching and outdoor painting was instrumental to her interest in and love of landscape. One of her fondest childhood memories is of a trip to Rocky Mountain National Park where her mother painted outdoors at Bear Lake. Her mother also taught her to draw her own paper dolls and paper doll clothes, complete with tabs.  She graduated with a B.A. from California State University at Fullerton, and studied art at Orange Coast College, Fullerton College, Tulsa Community College, Philbrook Art Museum School and Scottsdale Artists’ School. She has always studied the art of master painters in art museums, being particularly inspired by Thomas Moran, Gunnar Widforss, Carl Oscar Borg, Georgia O’Keeffe, Edgar Payne, Birger Sandzen and Maynard Dixon.