Since childhood I have been keenly aware of human suffering. I have struggled with my desire to end wars and injustices. Simultaneously, I have celebrated life, music, dance and nature. My deeply felt passions have resulted in the expressions of joy and pain seen in this exhibition.

One of my strongest memories from childhood was listening to my mom’s appeals for help to rescue those being persecuted by Hitler. Her constant concern for others and my father’s kindness made me who I am today. My work is as much about caring and celebrating life as it is about music and dance.

I can trace my work inspired by dance and music back to a drawing made at age 11 where I depict a little girl singing and swaying.

I loved to tap dance as I was growing up. Many of my early works are of dancers and musicians. Music festivals in the summer have been important in my life and work.

Yes. My 6-minute film, Caught in Paint (2003), captures me painting on 4- by 8-foot pieces of mylar over acrylic sheet while David Parsons and members of the Parsons Dance Company are seen in mid-air imitating the dancing lines of my paint strokes. This film, which has won many awards, has been invited to more than 115 film festivals, and was recently shown by Moving Pictures magazine at the Cannes Film Festival in France.

My workshops for dancers have been convened along with my exhibitions in universities. I have the dancers improvise and then extend their dance onto paper with spontaneous drawn lines.

My process is making deeply felt lines in response to music or allowing my inner music to guide me.

I can trace the beginning of this process to early childhood, when I mimicked the lines of my grandfather’s flower designs.

Later, my fifth grade teacher taught me to feel each line as it emanated from the roots to become a branch, a twig … a tree.

My next influence was figure drawing at the University of Illinois, where we drew the model in seconds, never taking our hands off of the paper.

Then, a visiting professor at the Kansas City Art Institute taught me to scribble one drawing after another in order to discover what was inspiring me to paint that landscape or figure.

Later, in 1975, I discovered that the doodles I had been making and throwing in the wastebasket all my life were the essence of me. Inspired by this realization, I began letting my lines flow, first with one hand, then two at once.

Trying to understand why I was drawing with two hands, I wrote “I feel like I’m dancing on paper.”

Incidentally, I do believe that drawing with two hands simultaneously has made me a more centered human being.

I developed a process of having a drawing enlarged and then fabricated, under my supervision, into a sculpture. This process is described in my children’s book, Nessie the Sculpture, which can be downloaded from www.ritablitt.com.

The first drawing I enlarged was for a 26-foot monumental sculpture. Much to my surprise, the drawing enlargement, which was to be my sculpture pattern, was returned to me in 18 pieces. Trying to figure out how to put this puzzle together, I crawled around on my hands and knees matching a dot from a line on one part to a discovered dot on an overlapping piece. Today, technology has rescued me from crawling on the floor to make a sculpture pattern.

I have been creating art all my life. When I won a scholarship to the Kansas City Art Institute at age 9 and again at 10, I decided that I wanted to become an artist, not the kind like Rembrandt who has works hanging in museums, but some kind of an artist. I never dreamt that my works would hang in museums as they do today.

No. I love to create and am always yearning for time to do so.

Many years ago, my husband said, “The viewer needs to be as creative in looking at my works as I have to be in making it.”

I’m fascinated by hearing the viewer’s interpretation and happy when my work evokes a response.

Motherhood reinforced my commitment to put family first. I believe that because of this priority, my husband and daughter enjoy sharing my work.

My favorite artists are Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso.

I trained my friends not to call me in the morning so that I can create. My social plans are mostly limited to evenings when I can share social life with my husband.

Not social life, but technology has encroached upon my creative time. Now I need to establish limits on technology equal to the clear limits that I put on my social life.

Most often I am pleased during the process of creating. Later, I begin looking at my work with a more critical eye. I do have many works with which I am satisfied.

I’m most proud of having created a poster with my painting and my words “Kindness is Contagious. Catch it!” which has been displayed all over the world. A kindness program has been inspired from these words and it is said to have affected the lives of millions. Please download my poster on www.ritablitt.com and pass it on.