Vitaly Umansky

I always knew I'll be an artist. I drew in all my notebooks all through the school years, I drew on the desks in school, and when I came home - I drew. And, after several alterations of formal and semi-formal art education, I received my BFA in Illustration from FIT, and... did not become an artist. I succumbed to outside pressures and pursued the field of Education, getting my MS Ed. two years later, and teaching for a number of years in several nursery schools. But the call to do art never left me, so I began carving time for that. I couldn't limit my duties at home with the kids, so I limited my work week, leaving myself a too small of a window to paint, but something is better than nothing. And in the past 3-4 years I did manage to create a certain body of work of about 200 works that I can make several themed portfolios out of. But no matter what, I continue to paint, whenever I can. And I keep the hope that as time goes by, and my daughters grow, I will get more and more time to fall deeper into my work, and pull to the surface its potential.