Billy Kornbluth spent summers before college on Monhegan Island in Maine where she was exposed to different groups of artists and styles of art. Exposed by the island’s natural beauty, she began to draw and paint on a regular basis. She won early recognition in school and community shows and contests.
She attended Bennington College, majoring in ceramic art and painting from 1968-1973. Taking a year off and living in Maine from spring 1972-Fall 1973 she worked in ceramics and continued to paint. While there, she had a solo show of serigraphs and 2 juried shows of her pottery.
She moved to New York City in 1973 where she continued to work in clay at Greenwich House Pottery creating functional and sculptural forms. She had a one-person show there in 1975. That same year she moved to a smaller, more private clay studio space in Chelsea. Concurrently, she worked part-time as a designer in publishing eventually learning computer graphics. During this time she completed a commissioned project of 150 small drawings.
She eventually returned to school for a Social Work Degree and Psychoanalytic Training in the early ’90s going into private clinical practice for ten years. At the same time she was taking of photos of deteriorating infrastructure in NYC which she then manipulated using the computer. Working with these photos led her to again return to drawing in 2008 but this time using the computer. These drawings began to be figurative. The figure was a new subject to be tackled and it insisted on paint.
