I credit my love ofline-drawing to an art teacher who taught a Saturday morning class when I was 5years old. He said, ‘Draw what you see in front of you without looking at your paper.’ I thought that was weird! Was it possible? What did he mean?

Annie then began to see lines around everything. “That teacher taught me to see… how to really see things… to appreciate everything and see beauty everywhere.”

Annie Hickman grew up to be a multi-disciplinary artist. Yet even now, several decades later, Annie looks back and recalls that he still comes to mind from time to time. “I so appreciate that he opened that door for me back then.” That mind-set did her well in the years that followed. After college where she majored in Art, Annie fulfilled an early ambition and worked for her “favorite Pop Artist, Marisol, at her studio in NYC!”

Still passionate about line drawings, Annie was drawn to the burlesque halls “so I could inhabit the secret life of Toulouse-Lautrec’s linear profiles of glamour girls,” she recalls, then adds with a sly grin, “I even joined them on stage for a number of years.”

At first Ms. Hickman created costumes for her own performances. But soon she was discovered by other dance and party companies and was recruited for all kinds of magical happenings! Cool things were blooming for Annie, including Off-Broadway shows, The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, and Henson Studios (The Muppets).

After about 15-20 years of making costumes using cloth and foam rubber, Annie had her “EUREKA!” moment when she discovered her signature medium. “Fashioning my headpieces out of basketry! Bringing the linear flatness of reeds into 3-dimensional sculptures,” gesturing as she explains. “This brought me back to my original doorway into the world of art - line drawings - but in 3-D.”

Annie found that to stay in shape for her performances she began practicing Yoga. “In many ways that took over a good part of my life,” she recalls. “Maintaining a 1-2 hour daily yoga practice, studying yoga under a variety of masters, spending a couple of long stretches of time in India, and ultimately, teaching yoga.”

Even during the "crowded" years, Annie made time to attend her personal “Annie’s Art Classes.” Retiring from her life as a dancing/performing costumed artist (“about the time I turned 70," she says matter-of-factly) Annie had more time for her first love: line drawings. Much of her art is now inspired by her love of yoga. “ Other aspects are energized by the environment around me,” says Annie, palms facing the sky. “But all of them have a flare of fancy and color.”

For Annie Hickman, life is brought-to-life “in a line.”