16 Facts About Martha Alf

Martha Alf is the only child of Foster Wise Powell and Julia Vivian Kane.

Martha Alf's father was an attorney and her mother worked as a legal secretary often for her husband.

When Martha was 2 years old her family moved to Winterset, Iowa, to live with her grandparents.

Martha Alf grew up in La Mesa, California, where she attended Grossmont High School, where she studied art.

At San Diego State University Martha Alf studied painting with Everett Gee Jackson.

Martha Alf then studied painting at the University of California at Los Angeles under Richard Diebenkorn.

Martha Alf first became recognized as a nationally significant artist for her 1970s "cylinder paintings," each of which depicts a toilet paper roll positioned like a monument on an empty stage.

Martha Alf painted many of the cylinder paintings in unorthodox colors that express a range of emotions.

Martha Alf approached the series as Josef Albers had in his "Homage to the Square" series, by repeating a constant image from painting to painting, but varying the colors.

In 1978, Martha Alf earned national recognition for her unique drawing technique.

Martha Alf shifted from black and white to color in her pastel drawings of the early 1980s.

Concurrent with the 1970s cylinder paintings, Martha Alf made photographs of toilet paper rolls as a means of studying color.

Martha Alf subsequently made photos of other subjects, including her familiar fruits and vegetables.

In 1998, Martha Alf began making photographs of pigeons roosting on a window sill opposite her home.

Martha Alf fed them to keep them coming, named each pigeon, created narratives for them, and produced a video featuring the pigeons, entitled "Birdland".

Around the same time, Martha Alf began photographing still life arrangements of unusual objects that she had collected over the years.