Marla Olmstead Still “The Thousand dollar Baby”

Marla Olmstead was born inJohnson City, New York in February, 2000. She began painting at the age of one. At two, she was creating large works on canvas. Her first exhibition, “All Kinds of Colors,” was held at a Binghamton, New York coffeehouse when she was just three years old. Using brushes, spatulas, her fingers and even ketchup bottles, she is creating canvases of six by six foot.

Her father said she had first started painting shortly before her second birthday as he tried to stop her distracting him from his own amateur art.

"It was me attempting to paint. I painted my wife"s portrait and I gave her the paint as a diversionary tactic.

"She went at it with all colors. Initially she directed me, and then it evolved to the canvas.

"I"m her assistant, I hand her the brushes. She doesn"t appreciate that most artists have to wait longer to have an assistant," he joked.

Mr Olmstead said his daughter"s work was evolving as she developed into a mature artist.

Marla"s recent works, some as large as 6"X6", feature vast fields of tension, bolts of color and great depth. She successfully marries the beautiful, raw strokes of a child with a mature sense of balance, form and a sometimes atmospheric composition.

Four,” her latest exhibition, opened at Anthony Brunelli Fine Arts, one of Central New York"s premier galleries, in August, 2004. Marla"s works attracted unprecedented thousands to the opening and is the Gallery"s most lauded exhibition to date. Her paintings are part of the noted west coast collection of Stuart Simpson, along with the works of Frederick Hart and Pierre-Auguste Renoir.