She moved to New York City in 1968 with her family, living in Queens and the Lower East Side. She meets other Latin American artists with whom she establishes professional and personal relationships, including Fernando Botero, Jose Gurevitch, Julio Alpuy, Fanny Sanín, Luis Camnitzer, Liliana Porter, Sonia Dorrego, Susana Perea, Laura Marquez and others. At that time, this groups of now-renowned artists met and gave lectures, but, with the exception of Botero, could not get exhibited in galleries.
She found herself in a pivotal moment where various currents of art were mixing, such as Pop Art, Conceptual Art, and Abstract Expressionism. The fusion of art and technology, specifically Video Art was beginning and being shown in places such as the Howard Wise Gallery. While she has always had interest in new technologies her financial means didn’t allow her to create in these new mediums.
In the museums of New York, Philadelphia and the Washington D.C she finally encountered actual works of art previously seen in books and reproductions. There she comes to have an understanding of the size of the paintings, their outlines and colors. She comes to see and deepened her understanding the different stages of art: the classic to the modern, and is interested and focuses her interest and studies on Dadaism and Surrealism.
She took engraving classes with Ben Bianchi at Parsons School of Design and had his unconditional support.
“I created some intaglios in white that satisfied me. I have reconstructed them due to the loss of the original plates.”
Although she continued life as an artist, to earn a living she worked in a series of factories painting: earrings, ornamentation, and decorative objects as well as assembling radios.
“In SoHo they started converting factories into galleries. While I worked in a radio factory, during lunch I went out to see the galleries. ”
After having her first child, a daughter, she found an interesting job, which paid her minimum wage. For Karl Mann Associates she recreated modernist paintings to order in the style of famous artists such as Mondrian.
“Although they did not pay well, I was able to work flexible schedule, important for a mom with newborn baby.”