When the going gets tough, the tough get going, and so it was for Bermudian Maxine Simons Burton when she found herself beginning life anew at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska as the wife of serving officer Jeffrey Burton.

Prior to the move, the couple had spent 13 wonderful years at a US Air Force base in a small Californian town, where the eternally-creative and energetic Maxine had done everything from substitute teaching to studying dance, joining the Dance Spotlight Repertory Company, teaching dance at Merced College, choreographing for plays and becoming an aerobics instructor ? all in addition to being a wife and mother of three children: Jeffrey, Jeri and Trenton.

So enjoyable was the life that when the base closed and her husband was posted to Offutt, Mrs. Burton found herself overwhelmed with sadness. ?I thought I was going there to die, but actually it was really nice ? a well-kept secret,? she recalls.

Even so, the uprooting meant she had to start all over again building a new life and making new friends. It didn?t her take long to realise that dance was going to be a non-starter. For a while she went from being extroverted to ?very introverted?.

That all changed, however, when Mrs. Burton located an art school ? something she had always wanted to attend.

With the encouragement of her niece in Bermuda, Nicole Ratteray, who teaches art at Somerset Primary School, Mrs. Burton followed her dream, entering the school on a scholarship. ?It was there that I figured out what I wanted to do ? illustration,? she says.

?I started working at home and building my own studio, which developed into my business, Art Attack. Along the way I did little art things, such as costuming, before I decided to pursue illustration.?

Nonetheless, the all-embracing course taught Mrs. Burton so many things that her creative options expanded to include jewellery, fibre art and more recently stained glass work.

?I learned all the basics ? design, form, texture, etc. ? from the drawing and painting classes. When I do jewellery and fibre art, I take what I know from those classes and incorporate it into my work. That is also what happens when I go back to painting. I find I have learned something through doing other art forms, so it is all very interwoven.?

With art school behind her, Mrs. Burton has indeed gone from strength to strength.

A member of Omaha Artists Inc., she enters her work in exhibitions, where on one occasion she earned an honourable mention, and on another a Graumbacher Award for a painting of her father, entitled ?Boo?s Place?.

Mrs. Burton has also been artist-in-residence at a local church, and worked with grief support groups involving art, but her big break came recently via art classes she teaches in an Omaha gallery, and she is now poised to enjoy what she calls her ?15 minutes of fame? on the Home and Gardens Television channel.

This Friday at 1 p.m. Bermuda time Mrs. Burton will appear on HGTV?s popular programme, ?That?s Clever?, demonstrating how she made and hand-painted a beautiful papier mach? bowl.

The news that she was one of 19 artists and crafters from Omaha selected to appear on ?That?s Clever? came as a great surprise, for which she credits her husband.

She said: ?When approached I thought, ?I don?t have anything to submit? but he said, ?Why don?t you send in the bowls you did three years ago? In fact, send them a picture of everything?.

?Three days later there was a call from Hollywood. It was the most amazing thing ? one of those moments you dream about.?

But the dream soon became reality as the HGTV film crew descended upon her home to film her in various stages of making a similar papier mach? bowl.

Far from being nervous, and with no script, Mrs. Burton simply winged it, and actually found the whole experience ?relaxing and comfortable?. She even thought, ?Oh, my goodness, I?ve found my wings. I could do this for a living.?

Given the breadth of her artistic journey thus far, and her vibrant personality, who knows ... maybe she will. After all, she comes from an island whose motto is ?Quo Fata Ferunt? ? ?Whither the fates lead us?.

Certainly Mrs. Burton could not have imagined, growing up in Bermuda, that the artistic spark first kindled by the arts programme at Prospect Secondary School would one day land her a segment on a popular US television programme appropriately entitled, ?That?s Clever?.

The daughter of George M. and Sarah Mills Simons, Mrs. Burton first attended Central School before going on to Prospect Sec, the then-Sixth Form Centre (now the Bermuda College) and Northeastern University in Boston where she majored in speech pathology and audiology.

Realising during her junior year that this was not what she wanted to do, she nevertheless continued on ? ?Parents didn?t encourage their children to major in arts? ? taking every available arts elective she could in her final year before graduating with a Bachelor of Science degree.

Today, as always, Mrs. Burton looks forward, not back.

?You have to keep a constant flow. One things leads to the next,? she says of her artistic journey.

For further information on Mrs. Burton e-mail maxxartcox.net or visit website www.maxxartattack.com