Many people talk about experiencing a life-changing event. Artist Marjie Eakin-Petty’s may have been a bit more dramatic than most, since it involved a serious car accident when she was 24. She refers to it her “transformative moment” and believes she was spared in order to have her life turned around. “I wanted to realize my purpose and I became more ambitious,” she says smiling.

Marjie was born and raised in the Bay Area of California and grew up in a family of artists. “I was always surrounded by creative people. My parents were active in community theater so life was full of artists, actors, musicians, and dancers. My father was an oil painter and writer; he directed plays and later taught painting. My mother was active in theatre, as was my artist auntl and as kids, my sister and I were part of the stage crew too. It was a very colorful upbringing.”

Wanting to get back to nature, she left home at 17 and relocated to Quincy, California, an area she describes as similar to Evergreen. There she attended college, majoring in art and studying graphic design. At 23 she returned to Oakland and a career in the corporate world in San Francisco. “It was the dream job,” she states. She was promoted first to the position of graphic designer and later became the art director of a department she herself created after conducting a survey to determine the specific needs of the company’s clients.