KAREN Dyer has always been interested in art. As a student at Warwick Academy, she worked towards her GCE. In England, she studied nursing, yet made time for photography workshops.

An associate's degree in Art and Design at the Bermuda College followed, as did a Liberal Arts degree in visual art and art history at Vermont CollegeStill, aside from the occasional piece in general exhibits, Mrs. Dyer's work remained in a tiny studio in her Paget home.

"I think as an artist you struggle to find your voice," she explained. "You constantly ask questions. Who am I? What am I doing? Why am I doing this? Why am I here?"

Painting, she explained, helped answer some of those questions.

However, it wasn't until she and her husband divorced that she began to show her work to the public. For that, she credits Masterworks.

"I started working at Masterworks two years ago, because I had to find a job. I got divorced," she said. "I hadn't worked (during my marriage) and my immediate thought was, 'How am I going to do this?' (Masterworks Foundation's executive director) Tom Butterfield and (assistant director) Elise Outerbridge took me on with no experience in the arts and no experience working in an office.

"They were very kind. They allowed me to arrange my schedule so I could have Mondays and Tuesdays to paint. I am so fortunate. A lot of artists don't have that; a time where they can say: 'This is my time to paint.' On the weekends, I've got my kids. I've got my husband. I love them all dearly, but Mondays and Tuesdays are for me. And I have to thank Masterworks for that opportunity. I get to work in the arts world and I get to paint."

Her first major foray came during Masterworks' Hogge Wilde competition, which challenged residents to come up with an artistic design for one of 52 undecorated fibreglass hogs.

Once designed, the hogs were auctioned off, with proceeds going to Masterworks' art education and public art programmes. The event raised $140,000 for the charity and Mrs. Dyer's 'Penny Hogger' was the biggest earner.

Capital G bid $8,500 for the hog, which boasts multiple images of a Bermuda one-cent piece. The piece of art is now sitting in the foyer of the new Capital G banking facility on Reid Street.

"The hog project was a huge one for me," she explained. "Not only did I participate in it from a creative point, but I had to (help organise the auction). By the end of the project I didn't want to see another hog. But it was great. It raised a lot of money for Masterworks. It was a really good cause."

The bidding process, she added, gave her new insight to how art prices are fixed.

"It's so subjective. It took hours and hours for me (to decorate the hog) ? printing all the pennies. I had pains on my hands from cutting them out. How do you put a value on artwork? Who can? How do you put a price on creativity? How do you put a price on somebody's time?"

On graduating from Warwick Academy, Mrs. Dyer studied nursing in England because, her father insisted she, "go do something sensible".

explained: "He asked me: 'Do you want to be able to earn a living?' So I went off to England to nursing school. While in London, I didn't paint but because I'd always been interested in photography, I began developing film and did little workshops ? nothing academic."

She returned to the island in 1985, working at King Edward VII Memorial Hospital before assuming the role of nurse manager at the newly-opened Agape House. Marriage and children followed and then, Mrs. Dyer explained, she went in search of a new challenge.

"I was in a situation where I didn't actually have to work outside the home. My little one was about three at the time and going to nursery school and I just wanted to do " she remembered. "So I went back to Bermuda College. I tried art history. I did macro-economics with (College lecturer) Craig Simmons. And I did English."

decided that she could cope with the demands of academia, Mrs. Dyer decided to pursue a degree. In art, of course, her preferred subject.

"I decided to do the associate's degree in Art and Design, a two-year course. When I finished that, I took a year off and then decided to sign up to do a distance education programme through Vermont College. I lived here and, every six months, went to Vermont for a week. What you basically do is set up a study plan with your adviser and then in the next six months, you have to read a minimum of 20 academic texts.

"When you finish reading each book you then write a critical annotation on (it) ? an analysis of what you've read, in comparison to other books you've read on the same subject. It hones your critical thinking skills. You learn to write. You learn to read critically. You don't have to believe everything you read but you have to be able to say why you agree or don't agree.

"It's just a really interesting process of education. And, for anybody who has ever thought they wanted to finish their bachelor's degree but didn't know how to get there, I have all the information. I'd advise anybody to go and sign up.

"It's really a great programme (although) it is really intense. People sometimes think distance education is easy (but) you have to be really disciplined. There's nobody to tell you to do the work. If you don't do it, nobody cares."

The Liberal Arts programme she selected encompassed everything, the artist explained. The ancient Greek civilisation, its history, art and culture; feminist artists and authors, even mathematics and its relation to art.

"You have to have a very well-rounded education. I had a lot of art history classes and several studio art courses. Luckily, I had already satisfied my science requirements by studying geography and meteorology (at) the Bermuda College. And, because they give credit for prior learning, my nursing was also taken into account. But I had big holes in history."

After three semesters, Mrs. Dyer had earned a bachelor's degree.

"And then, in between all that, I got divorced," she said. Although she could have returned to nursing, an opening at Masterworks was a bit more appealing to her artistic interests.

"I did consider nursing. It would have been really easy for me. I wouldn't have any headaches. I wouldn't have any aggravation. When you work in an office, you have to deal with a lot of people all the time.

"The phones are always going. Masterworks is a really dynamic organisation. It's a fun place to work. It's exciting. But it's busy. It's interesting that when I first applied to work there my thought was: 'Well, how difficult could it be?'"

She soon found out. Today, the charity's part-time programme co-ordinator, she found that initial role somewhat challenging.

"I was hired originally to look after membership and corporate membership. That lasted two weeks. I went to Tom and Elise and said: 'I'm sorry. I can't do this. I hate it. It's basically sucking out my life energy'.

"It was soul-destroying for me. But they told me I couldn't leave; that I could do other things. So I began working with the computer database, doing administrative work in the office, helping with the Artist-in-Residence programme.

"When I began working there they had a dedicated (education officer). But that person didn't work out. Suddenly they were left with nobody to fill the role in the middle of a capital campaign and we really needed somebody to plan activities for summer camps and things like that."

As well Mrs. Dyer co-ordinates the Artists Up Front . . . Street series and has even taken on a teaching role at "one of the summer camps when the teacher got sick".

"Nursing would have been easier," she concedes. "At least I knew it. For me, this is new ground."

Tackling that new ground while developing her skills as a painter wasn't always easy, she admits. Scarier still is the prospect of exhibiting her first solo show, .

"It's work that I've done, mostly in 2004 but some from 2003, 2002," she explained. "It's a series. The red series is an older series which came as a response to all the feminist work that I did (at Vermont College) and I'm going to continue with that series. It's interesting to paint.

"The Green Series is sort of a series of shadows. When you look at Bermuda and all the green here ? I love it. I love our climate. I love the grass. One of the things that's fascinate me is the light and the shadows. I don't paint light and shadows but some other artists do and capture it beautifully.

"I think Chris Marson is one of them. I went to one of his workshops and it kick-started me back into painting again. And that's what you get from going and studying with other people ? an appreciation of what's around you. You start looking. And for me, those green paintings are inspired by Bermuda's nature and the intensity of the colours here.

"The Blue Series is about the ocean ? about turbulence, about the world, about clarity. It's got beautiful qualities. Sometimes the ocean's flat calm. And then a lot of the time the ocean's really churned up. I think it's a scary place sometimes."

With the aid of a digital camera, she was able to express those differences in her own art form, Mrs. Dyer explained.

"I like taking landscape (pictures); playing with them in Photo Shop and changing them, making them a little surreal. Last year I took (some of the ocean). I decided to change some of those images into paintings. I used my digital camera and my computer to make little paintings, seascapes that are slightly different. Certainly, a lot of it comes out of my head."

Although her work with Masterworks has exposed Mrs. Dyer to much of what artists experience in their quest to produce art, tonight's opening will be no less nerve-racking for the first-time exhibitor.

"I'm nervous about (tonight)," she confessed. "I wish it were over. You open yourself up to criticism. Part of the process of being a creative person is accepting critique. If you can have someone critique your work in a positive way, so that you can grow from it, that's wonderful (but) you have to accept the fact that everybody's going to have a different opinion.

"Some people will like it. Some people won't. And just because someone thinks it's wonderful doesn't mean that it is. It just means they think it's wonderful.

"It's hard. I paint because I have to paint. I paint, probably, because it makes me feel better. But I think most artists have a struggle. Over 90 per cent of the people who graduate with art degrees don't paint.

"They don't practise their art. They don't actually create (largely because) it's a scary process. You're going to be judged. Why put yourself through it? Why bother? And I've had my days where I think: 'Oh dear. I must be mad'."

Karen Dyer's exhibit opens tonight at Masterworks' Front Street gallery and runs through November 18.