SEDONA, AZ, August 05, 2022 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Victoria L. Norton has been included in Marquis Who's Who. As in all Marquis Who's Who biographical volumes, individuals profiled are selected on the basis of current reference value. Factors such as position, noteworthy accomplishments, visibility, and prominence in a field are all taken into account during the selection process.
Drawing on over four decades of expertise in art, Ms. Norton specializes in both ceramics and calligraphy. As a child Ms. Norton was always sketching, and her parents encouraged her artistic passion. Travel was encouraged in her family, and she studied French starting a young girl. Her visit to Cartagena, Colombia at aged seventeen, exposed her to the cultural, political, and economic differences of other cultures that young girls seldom see.
She spent her first two years of college at Northwestern University, in Chicago, Illinois. Art History, Shakespeare and learning Spanish were her lasting gifts from there. But the lure of California was always present, so she finished at the University of California, Los Angeles, earning a Bachelor of Arts degree. Accepted to the graduate program at UCLA, she instead spent the next six months travelling in Europe, on an extremely small budget. There was the opportunity to see all the art she had read about in books, and undoubtedly influenced later creativity. During this time, she started working in the fashion industry at a large department store in Los Angeles, and later in New York when she was married and lived on Long Island. That made her realize that fashion was not a career she desired.
When she started "playing with clay," she knew this was the direction she wanted to follow. But first came a nine-month trip to Europe, travelling and living in an VW van, where she used her French in Marrakesh to buy 100 handmade shirts and the glass trade beads for jewelry they sold in Europe to pay for the trip. After returning to Venice, CA. she and her husband desired to buy a house, so she had to find a job that paid well enough. She was hired as one of the first "detail women" in America for a pharmaceutical company, in the 1970s. She called on doctors to describe the benefits of various drugs the company made. As a minority in this career area, she experienced all the political issues of wage inequality and sexual harassment that were swept under the rug at this time. Corporate sales training undoubtedly was helpful training for selling art and teaching. Always a beach lover, the Nortons bought their "fixer upper" at the beach in Venice, then a true diversity area in Los Angeles with lots of artists and unusual examples of humanity.
Meanwhile, nights and weekends were spent creating at a local clay studio. Ms. Norton pursued her passion as a ceramicist in Venice, selling at art shows and galleries. Then came the desire to learn calligraphy, and so for ten years she studied with well-known calligraphers from both the USA and England. This led to opportunities to teach calligraphy in the Los Angeles area. Her last job there was teaching calligraphy at Los Angeles City College. However, the strong desire to photograph the wild animals of Africa led to a five-month sojourn in east Africa and Egypt. Once again came a political realization of other cultures, and the beauty of nature. Upon returning to Venice, came the knowledge the big city had lost its appeal. Travelling around the USA, and Mexico while living in an eighteen-foot camper for three years in the early 1980s, Ms. Norton visited, fell in love with, and moved to the artistic town of Sedona, AZ.
There Ms. Norton taught calligraphy at the Sedona Arts Center until 2003. She was featured on the cover of Kudos magazine in 2001. Becoming a newly single woman, Ms. Norton continued her career using her professional signature V. Norton for her creations. After teaching at the Arts Center, she went on to become an adjunct professor in the School of Communications at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, AZ. She taught the history of fonts and printing which started with calligraphy, in a course called Type Foundations. Currently she writes an online blog that can found at sedonaartist.blogspot.com. She has had solo shows: "Abstraction" in 2009, and "Reflections" at a Jerome, AZ. gallery where she showed for many years. She continues to create art with her personal jewelry line; porcelain bowls; masks; and calligraphic cards and prints and doing freelance commissions.
Long dedicated to civic participation, Ms. Norton has contributed her time and services to political advocacy and local volunteerism both in California and her hometown of Sedona, AZ. Her Venice story appeared in the 2015 book "Passing it on: Moving Stories of Activists - 1960-2000 by Bev Jenai-Meyers. She volunteered at Red Rock State Park, in Sedona, AZ, leading bird and nature walks for fifteen years. She is a member of the Arizona Indivisible group, and a longtime supporter of the Sedona Area Visuals Artists, which brings local artists together. Ms. Norton attributes much of her success to her own drive and tenacity. When frequently asked how to become an artist her answer is to "just do it, and don't give up." Looking to the future, Ms. Norton aspires to keep creating art and hopes to inspire others to follow their own artistic dreams.
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