Born in Beaumont, Texas, Brenda earned a BS from the University of Houston and worked towards a Masters Degree in Sculpture.  She also studied enameling and jewelry fabrication and casting at the Glassell School of Art at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston and Photography at the International Center for Photography in New York. She raised her three children in Houston before her relocation to New York in 1996 and then in 2014 to settle int he Roaring Fork Valley of Colorado.

Growing up at the southern tip of the Big Thicket National Preserve in Eastern Texas, surrounded by the steamy atmosphere of swamps and backyards filled with pecan, fig and pomegranate trees made an indelible influence on her aesthetics. She began working in watercolor in her early twenties and while living in Houston she focused on creating sterling art jewelry and learning the enameling process.  After moving to Tribeca in New York, her focus shifted to street and still life photography. Now living in Colorado with her husband, contemporary painter Paul Manes, she is rekindling her love of all of the processes with which she has worked.

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