Born In Tallahassee, Florida on May 27, 1943. In 1944 we moved to Long Island and then from there in 1949 to Trout Lake, 5 miles north of George Village in upper New York State. From first to eleventh grade I had attended Bolton Central School, later finishing my senior year and graduating from Glens Falls High School in 1961. I went to New Paltz State College for one year, attended Dutchess Community College for one semester and attended Hudson Falls Community College for two semesters. I moved to New York City for a few years as an executive secretary and spent a year also in Los Angeles.
Through the kindness of potter Al Bonk, I moved to Woodstock in 1967. Learning a little pottery from Al caretaking for his Woodstock Yankeetown Pond house for a little over a year. Al had a Mexican harp in his house which I taught myself to play by listening to other records at first. Later after learning a lot of Mexican ethnic songs, I started playing some of my own tunes, and country western and jazz with classical overtones. I went professional within a few years, playing dinner music, weddings, art gallery openings, Library Fairs, 3 multi media concerts at the Klein art Gallery in Woodstock, with “Garden of Eve” trio, quartet and quintet where I played 5 or 6 instruments to music I wrote, solo and with my groups. My oldest wood sculpture “nimrod” came from this period plus some artworks that were lost. Mostly music kept e busy for about 15 years including playing the harp on the sidewalks of New York City and also in front of Trinity Church for 2 summers.
Later running into physical problems no longer being able to play the harp this launched me into a new direction and opened Garden of Eve Art Gallery and Thrift Shop running from 1980 through 1990. A large geometric acrylic painting series came from that period as well as weavings, quilts, sculptures, crystal mobiles using crystals I mined myself in Herkimer County. During that time I had works at the Artist’s Association once in a while, a person show at the Woodstocker Restaurant (now Sunflower Health Store). Garden of Eve Gallery was written up in the Rolling Stone Magazine (issue 556/557 July 13th-27th, 1989, page 46) Woodstock page at the bottom in its own little box entitled “EVE OTTO : Back To The Garden”. Many wood sculpture came out of this period as well as round geometric and realistic paintings I stretched myself also doing oriental rug and carpet restoration for the last 4 years at the shop.
Forced to abandon large paintings, the tally from 1996 to 1999made me consider myself a serious artist for the first time in my life devoted to making a living from my art work. I am now currently residing at 33 Overlook Drive in a good old Bearsville Flats house.