In 1975, Tona Wilson @tona_wilson was studying painting and film at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She left to travel in South America. What started out as a short trip became a life-changing move. Wilson, a middle class white woman with minimal Spanish, found herself in Buenos Aires in 1976 during a military coup, became fluent in Spanish and allied with her friends in Argentina. She later lived in Buenos Aires for many years. After a short period during which her story-telling was limited to notebooks, sketchbooks, translation and journalism, she returned to painting. When she returned to the United States, she was able to support herself as a Spanish interpreter, working in courts, jails and prisons, and continued to paint. In recent years, she has also worked in video, book arts and printmaking. She has shown her work since 1985, first in Argentina and then in the US. Her handmade books are held in the collections of many universities and libraries. She now lives with her wife in the Hudson Valley of New York State.

Falcón verde. Photo courtesy of Tona Wilson.