Patricia Dunbar was born in New York City, and was raised in the suburbs of Boston, Chicago, and St. Louis.
Pat has always been interested in art and design. She loves to work with her hands to make things. Very early on her teachers wrote: “Patty is very gifted in art.” It came as a wonderful surprise to learn that she could earn a living doing the very things she used to do for free because they were fun.
Pat majored in art at Michigan State University. One of her most important influences was a professor at MSU, Charles Pollock. Pat was lucky enough to arrive at school for her senior year, just as he returned from a sabbatical. Pat took every class he taught: calligraphy, etching, lithography, and graphic design. He was a wonderful and exacting teacher.
After graduation Patricia lived and worked in Ann Arbor, Michigan as a medical illustrator; Connecticut and New York City designing books and book covers in house for Reader’s Digest, Harper & Row, Viking, and Abrams, and as a freelancer for most of the area’s major publishing houses; Marquette, Michigan; and San Francisco, again working for publishers both as a freelancer and in house for a college text book publisher, Wadsworth Publishing Company.
Thirty-five years ago, Pat moved to the Boston area to design for Little Brown & Co. She raised her daughter, now grown and on her own. Twelve summers ago she moved to Salem where, now newly retired, she can get back to painting, photography, drawing, and yet more graphic design.