Michelle "Mike" Ochonicky

Even as a child, I wanted to be an artist. In college, classical training in sculpture along with studies of ancient art history gave me a taste for precision and gave a three-dimensional approach to my work. In 1979, with my husband’s loving support, my dream of a career in art became reality in the stone basement of our old house in St. Louis City. Stone Hollow Studio was launched! We’re now located deep in the wooded hills south of Eureka, Missouri but the studio is still quite tiny. My art has taken me all over the world, from the White House to Paris and beyond. It’s been projected in Times Square in New York and included in a 5-city touring exhibition in Germany. I find inspiration in the details of nature, especially animals and plants. In a world so bombarded by supersizing, by big, loud “stuff,” it is calming to concentrate on what is small, what is so often overlooked. Such study requires a sense of peace and sensitivity. After all, art comes from the hand and the heart.