Chronology

	Born in Grand Rapids, Michigan to Victoria and Peter Wege.
1968-1970	Moves with mother and three siblings to Ann Arbor. Her mother collects East Asian art, including Hiroshige woodcuts. At one of her mother’s parties, meets Françoise Gilot and her husband Jonas Salk. Her father is instrumental in partnering with The National Endowment for the Arts in bringing Alexander Calder and his monumental stabile La Grand Vitesse to Grand Rapids, the first ever placement under the NEA’s “Art for Public Places” program. Paints a 15 x 30-foot Japanese screen as a set for Greenhills School’s production of Gilbert & Sullivan The Mikado. Studies French in Arcachon, France.
1970-1972	Executes first oil painting, Daguerreotype, while studying with Helen Berland at the University School of Milwaukee (USM). Wins the Grumbacher Award at The Scholastic Art exhibition in New York City. Studies French translation and sculpture at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee (UWM). Paints and organizes other painters to create a set design for Dostoyevsky’s The Idiot and Anthony Hope’s The Prisoner of Zenda, USM theater productions.
1973-1976	Kayaks in Alaskan designated wilderness with the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS), where she draws portraits of the other participants. Attends Syracuse University; designs and completes Independent Study in Painting and Japanese Studies with Charles Dibble, PhD. Studies printmaking with Don Cortese and painting with Daryl Hughto. Discovers a book on Helen Frankenthaler’s stain paintings. Keeps journal of sketches during travels through Europe for two months, including one month in Brittany, France. Becomes Art Editor of the Syracuse Review. Studies in Japan with Colgate University, and catalogues prints and objets d’art in Kyoto art galleries. Exhibits first color pencil field and sky works at The Joe and Emily Lowe Art Center, Syracuse University.
1976-1978	Sets up studio in SoHo, New York where Whitney Museum curator, Patterson Simms views her field & sky color pencil drawings.
1979-1984	Marries kinetic sculptor, James Ossi. Moves to Stamford, Connecticut. Ossi shows at the OK Harris where she meets Ivan Karp. Begins four years of exhibiting color pencil flower drawings with Webb & Parsons in Connecticut. Sells most of her work through the Kathryn Markel Gallery on 57th Street in New York. Editions first lithograph, Bouquet With Alstroemeria, with Randy Folkman at Lonetown Press, Redding, Connecticut. First child, Sara Victoria, is born.
1984-1993	Moves to New Canaan. Second child, Peter James, is born. Begins creating collages. James and she divorce. Joins the board of the Vermont Studio Center in Johnson, Vermont, and meets fellow board member, Wolf Kahn. John Walker, visiting critic, is her mentor. Begins the Nine Lives conceptual assemblage series after Sara remarks that people “treat the earth like it had nine lives.”Works again with Randy Folkman on lithographs of waves, parts of Twenty-Nine and Night Swimmingassemblages included in Nine Lives series.
1995-1996	Diana Wege: Nine Lives opens at the Kohn, Pederson Fox Gallery on 57th Street in New York and travels to the Grand Rapids Art Museum (GRAM), curated by GRAM’s director, Judith Sobol. Peter Jones of The Wilderness Society convinces her to paint wild lands in the United States. Travels to paint wild lands in Minnesota, Texas, New Mexico, Vermont, Michigan, Wyoming, Arkansas, Missouri, and Washington. Begins 10 x 20-foot mural in West School library, New Canaan. Resigns from Vermont Studio Center Board. Joins the board of the Silvermine Guild & Art Center, New Canaan.
1997-1998	Travels to paint in Rhode Island, New York, Connecticut, North Carolina, Alaska, Massachusetts, Colorado, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Kansas, California, Florida, Montana, and Utah. Founds CrUSAde (later becoming Conflict Resolution Education Fund) to bring conflict resolution education to public schools in Connecticut. Her son Peter Ossi designs logo.
1999	Works with former Pierpont Morgan Library book publisher Julianne Griffin to create book, Land America Leaves Wild. Marries Tim Sherogan, Greenwich, Connecticut, businessman. Completes library mural at West School, New Canaan, Connecticut.
2000-2001	Land America Leaves Wild is published by The Wilderness Society and GRAM with an introduction by Judith Sobel, coinciding with the opening during GRAM’s Festival 2000 of Land America Leaves Wild, an exhibition of eighteen four-panel paintings of wild lands of twenty-two states. Dedicates Sara Victoria Hall, named for her daughter and mother. She and Leonard Tow are elected the first members of the Silvermine Honorary Board.
2001-2002	Land America Leaves Wild travels to The Palitz Gallery, 61st Street, New York, and then to The U. S. Department of the Interior Museum, Washington, D.C. where it remained for an extended period of time due to 9/11.
2003-2004	Through independent curator Ben Ortiz, is commissioned by the Connecticut Commission on Culture & Tourism to execute an 18 x 3-foot oil painting (four panels), Stretched Connecticut, to be installed at Eastern Connecticut State University’s Nobel Hall, Willimantic. Meets Anthony Kirk, master printer of the Center for Contemporary Printmaking (CCP), Norwalk, Connecticut. Joins CCP board. Produces monoprints based on Land America Leaves Wild imagery.
2006-2009	Meets Leslie Nolan, CCP director and becomes CCP board Chair. Meets and presents Helen Frankenthaler at the dedication of CCP’s Helen Frankenthaler Printmaking Cottage. Prints monotypes with Judith Solodkin, Solo Impressions master printer. Royce Ragland, board member of Grand Traverse Regional Land Conservancy, (GTRLC), challenges her to complete wild lands paintings of all fifty states for an exhibition the following year at Interlochen Center for the Arts, Michigan, presented by the GTRLC. Anthony Kirk prints America’s Choice edition, which is exhibited at the Katonah Art Museum, and the Mallow and Sospelminiature print etching editions. Travels to paint South Carolina, Delaware, Oregon, Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, Hawaii, New Jersey, Louisiana and Mississippi. Completes Pictured Rocks, commission for private collector. Resigns from CCP Board.
2010	Prints monotypes with Marina Ancona, master printer, 10 Grand Press. At The 14th Annual Wege Foundation Speaker Series at Aquinas College Performing Arts Center, Grand Rapids, presents renowned oceanographer Dr. Sylvia Earle, who challenges her to paint the oceans and seas. Travels to paint North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, Nebraska, Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia and Alabama. Diana Wege: Land America Leaves Wild exhibition opens at Interlochen’s Dow Center for the Arts. Joins International Print Center New York (IPCNY) Board.
2011	Begins Great Lakes pastels and paintings. Begins illustrating book, A Day with Bonefish Joe, written by Elizabeth Howard. Juries IPCNY New Prints/Fall show.
2012	Exhibited MISSISSIPPI – Homochitto National Forest, 18″ x 36″, oil on canvas in the Professional Painters Show, The Century Association, NY, NY. Visited Cuba’s Parque Nacional La Guira, and painted study for CUBA, a painting completed in 2014.
2013	Painted Wedding Painting, exhibited at The Boston Public Library for her daughter’s wedding, June 15. Printed Reject Violence with Maurice Sánchez, master printer.
2014	Exhibited LEGAL GRAFFITI, 2011 – 2014, 8’8″ x 7’7″ oil on canvas, in the New Members Show, The Century Association, NY, NY. Exhibited MONTAÑA, 2012, 22.25″ x 30″, Lithograph, 49/50, in the Print Show, The Century Association, NY, NY. Draws additional panel for Reject Violence print, Oppose Violence. Exhibited CUBA – Parque Nacional La Guira, 2012 – 2014, 18″ x 18″, oil on canvas in the Professional Painters Show, The Century Association, NY, NY.
2015	David Godine, Inc., Boston, MA, publishes A Day With Bonefish Joe, written by Elizabeth Howard, and illustrated by Diana, July 2015. Accepted to Associate Membership in The Society of Illustrators, NY, NY. Installation of “What Did You Expect?” A copy of Frederic E. Church’s, “Niagara Falls,” July 28. Tim and she divorce. Installed Fragile Environments, her copy of Frederic E. Church’s, “Niagara Falls From The American Side” on West 22nd St., NY, NY. Vandals tagged it four times and the piece was taken down August 5 to be shipped to Grand Rapids for the ArtPrize Seven competition. Diana was named to the Art Prize Seven Jurors Category Short List by Justine Ludwig, Director of Exhibitions/Senior Curator of Dallas Contemporary, Dallas, Texas. This Two Dimensional category entry was installed along with its pair, Legal Graffiti, at First (Park) Congregational, Grand Rapids, Michigan.