Shirley Novak was raised in Southern California and as a child she loved to garden, dreaming of becoming an artist someday so that she could share the beauty of her flowers.

 During the last 15 years, Shirley’s work has been featured in several one-person gallery shows in Boulder, Colorado and Charleston, South Carolina. She has also been included in many group invitational shows, including one at the Salmagundi Club in New York City. Her work has been published in many art publications and has even found its way onto the cover of Art Talk, published in Scottsdale, Arizona.

 In 1996 Shirley met her husband, painter Ralph Oberg, in Aspen, Colorado in a painting workshop taught by Michael Lynch. They married in 1997 and moved to Montrose, Colorado where they built their home, a studio, and a wonderful garden bursting with flowers that appear regularly in her paintings.