Ann A. Martin

Ann A. Martin

Ann Aves Martin, of Columbia, died April 15, 2007, at Gilchrist Center for Hospice Care in Towson. She was 72.

Born Jan. 28, 1935, in New York, to Wesley and Margaret Walker Aves, she graduated from East Grand Rapids High School in East Grand Rapids, Mich., in 1953.

She spent a year at la Sorbonne in Paris where she studied French culture in preparation to become a French teacher. In 1957, she earned a bachelor's degree in French from Rockford College in Rockford, Ill.

She began teaching French in the late 1950s, first at Barrington High School in Barrington, Ill., for a year, then at Northern Illinois University in Dekalb, Ill., for three years.

She married Donald L. Martin in 1965.

In the early 1980s, she studied with Richmond, Va. artists John Torres and Ann Lyne for two years in Richmond, prior to attending painting classes in the mid-1980s at the Art Student's League, a student-formed group in Manhattan. Here, Mrs. Martin studied the style of the Old Masters.

She also participated in various workshops in Vermont in 1987 under Wolf Kahn and Arizona in 1988 under David Leffel.

She also studied at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, in Mount San Angelo, Va., where she developed a love for drawing mountain landscapes with dry pastels on paper and some oil pastels.

Mrs. Martin also worked as an administrative assistant for Earle Ludkin, an advertising firm in Chicago; as a makeup artist for WMAQ-TV in Chicago; and as an office manager for Lasco Inc., an agriculture business in Greenwood, Miss.

In the early 1980s, she went back to both painting and drawing, and showing and selling her work.

The Martin family moved to Laurel in 1993 and then Columbia in 1996. Mrs. Martin kept a studio at Savage Mill for four years and then one at the Howard County Center for the Arts in Ellicott City. The studio was closed in October 2006.

Her work has been shown at the Columbia Center for the Arts, Slayton House, the Annapolis Court House and the Maryland Art Place.

Mrs. Martin is survived by her husband of 42 years, Donald L. Martin, of Columbia; a son, Peter G. Lukidis, and grandson, Ian Lukidis, of Evanston, Ill.; a daughter, Jamie Ann Martin, of Knoxville, Tenn.; and a brother, John Crake Aves, of Grand Rapids.

A celebration of her life will be held at the Columbia Center for the Arts in September.

Interment will occur at a later date.

Memorial donations may be made to: Columbia Center for the Arts, 6200 Foreland Garth, Columbia, MD 21045.