About Mary-Michael Billings

Mary-Michael Billings was born in Honolulu, Hawaii on July 5th, 1955. Her father, John Hilary Billings was a mathematician and an officer in the US Navy stationed in Pearl Harbor. Her mother, Dolores Welzant Billings was busy with two of Mary-Michael’s siblings. Vicki and J. Hilary Jr. were 4 and 2 respectively. Mary-Michael was affectionately known as Mer-Mike and for a time, just Mike.

Travels for Navy related assignments continued for the young family until the tragic death of John Hilary Sr. on the Thresher submarine in 1963. The sub imploded after sinking too deeply into the Atlantic on a routine dive. The Billings family remained in South Berwick, Maine after the accident. Mer-Mike now had a sister Cathy just 18 months younger, and a brother Blake. She remembers that her father played boogie-woogie piano at home, the tuba for the Naval marching band, and was devoutly Catholic.

In South Berwick, Mary-Mike began art lessons with Al Brulé. Her mother, Dolores, insisted that her daughter be allowed into the adult classes at age 11 and dutifully framed 2 early charcoal studies of bottles and loaves of bread. Dolores was also devoutly Catholic, sending all of her children to Catholic schools. She was a natural athlete having skated on the sidewalks of Baltimore, Maryland as a child where she was noticed by talent scouts for a professional troupe of skating entertainers. Later, she joined the Maine Track Club and completed the Marine Corps Marathon in her sixties. Dolores encouraged all her children to succeed through hard work, integrity and perseverance.

Mary-Michael will tell you that she began art lessons with Al Brulé after being terrified by her piano teacher. “He thought I was my older sister, Vicki, and was yelling because I couldn’t play the piece he had set before me.” Al Brulé had a more laissez-faire approach of encouraging exploration of the medium—charcoal and acrylics for beginners. As a student, Mary-Michael was impressed by Brulé’s mastery of oil paint in his finely detailed portraiture, landscapes and still life.

In 1993 Mary-Michael received her Master’s Degree in Art Education from the University of Maine, Orono. Her thesis involved research into Art as Sacred Experience, and the resulting understanding that this channel may be reached through inquiry into nature, emotional response to nature or human interchange, and includes an aesthetic experience that is, as the philosopher Kant would say, beyond rational discourse.

Mary-Michael Billings
Author, Artist & Owner