Who is Merida?

Merida Bass, self-proclaimed masochist, almost wasn’t an artist. Despite a lifetime love of drawing, her crippling fear of criticism resulted in a master's degree in mathematics; a field free from opinions. After ten unrewarding years of teaching remedial algebra to unwilling college students, Merida grew something she never had before: a backbone. She threw herself into her artwork while homeschooling her three daughters, and attending to one husband and various cats over the years. Merida assumes her fine art will be quite valuable after she’s dead. Until then, she fills the pages of her published children’s books with illustrations. Merida always has too many projects going on at once. She co-authors the hilarious Ninja Grandparent Placement Mysteries and The Tapestry Tales series with her also too busy mother, prolific cozy mystery author Catherine Dilts. For fun during her downtime, Merida participates in extreme endurance events like 24 Hours of Palmer Lake, in her home state of Colorado. 

• My bachelor's and master's degrees are in mathematics, not art. 
• I didn't get an easel until I started working on my View of Pikes Peak picture. My other giant drawings were done on my dining room table, or on a board propped against my dresser!
• I have run four ultra-marathons, including two 50k trail runs, one 50 miler, and one 55 miler.
• Despite my appearance, I have no exotic origins. My mother is white, and my father is black. As a child, I thought this ought to make me a gray person. My genealogy test shows I don't have more than 16% of any one heritage in my bloodline, so in that regard perhaps I truly should be categorized as gray! Although most would simply call me American.  
• As an only child who was homeschooled, I made most of my friends in books. Even though my youngest child is driving, I can still recite Dr. Seuss’s ABC, and One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish on command. I vehemently believe that the most important and valuable artform in the world is the illustrated children’s book.  

I do use color in all of my children's book illustrations. But for my giant artwork, I love the effects I get from plain artist pencils and black ink. If you have the opportunity to see my artwork in person, you will see that the graphite actually shimmers and shines. The pieces often change entirely depending on the lighting. You can kind of view this phenomenon in the collection of photos I have showing the progression of my latest large piece.