Armed with a Master's degree in Medical Illustration from The
Johns Hopkins University Medical School, Perri worked for 25 years
at a variety of academic medical institutions (Stanford Medical
School, Baylor College of Medicine, UT Southwestern Medical Center)
producing surgical illustrations for publication, medical animation,
and classroom teaching.
She holds a part-time position as Assistant Professor teaching
surgical art in the Biomedical Illustration Graduate Program at UT
Southwestern, while producing fine art for commissions and gallery
sales. She hosts a weekly figure painting session and teaches
classes and workshop at the Creative Art Center in Dallas. An
active member of the Portrait Society of America, Perri was
appointed to the position of Ambassador for the state of Texas
serving as a link between the state's membership and the national
organization.
In 2004, Perri married her long time friend, Larry Hafemeister and
they have purchased a home on Quadra Island on the west coast of
British Columbia in Canada (Larry wanted Alaska, Perri wanted
Northern California, Quadra was smack dab in the middle). They will
move to Quadra pending Canadian Immigration Residency Status but
will be maintaining a home in Texas. Quadra Island is one of the
small Gulf Islands reached by a 10-minute ferry ride from Campbell
River, a city on the East coast of Vancouver Island.
Their 4.5 acre waterfront home will offer painting opportunities
to artists who want to take workshops, access space in her large
studio, or simply paint the magnificent scenery.
After years of precisely portraying surgical anatomy for limited
color production, she enjoys creating full-sized figurative
paintings with a focus on searching for the subject's more elusive
qualities during the exchanges that occur from working with a live
model. Her pastels are particularly colorful and expressive and
lately she has enjoyed capturing smaller, onsite landscapes in both
pastel and oil. " I guess after years of 'red for the arteries, and
blue for the veins', I needed to break out and tell my own story!"
