Teresa Linn-Gregory (Tres as she is known) is a
grandmother of 13 grandchildren. She began painting while
living in rural Alabama. She is completely self taught.
Living at the poverty level, there just wasn't any money
left over to buy unnecessary things ... sometimes there
wasn't enough money to buy the necessary things. Most of her
furniture was either hand me downs or something someone had
thrown out. She'd drag it home and using house paint she
would fix it up with her own designs. Pretty soon, she had
others wanting her to paint things for them. When she got
divorced, she moved to Michigan so she could make a living
and support her kids. She met her current husband up there
and they have been married over 30 years now. Harry also
likes to paint and they will hopefully being doing some
pieces together this year. He signs his art "Old Harry" ...
because there's a Harry, Jr. She signs her paintings "Tres"
which is the nickname her family gave her. A doctor once
told her that in French her name would be pronounced "tray"
but she didn't know if that was the truth or he was just
pulling her leg. Either way, She's still just "Tres". Tres
doesn't have any rhyme or reason to her designs ...
something just pops into her head and She has to paint it.
Some of her most favorite things to paint are things from
her past, or things that look like they would have come from
the 1700's. But her all time most favorite is the paint
scenes that look like a Rufus Porter painting. She would do
a hundred of them if she could. Right now she has one 80%
finished ... has been for the last 6 years but she loves
this one the best of all she's done. She knows if she
finishes it that it will be sold and that she cannot look at
it anymore. In the 1990's Tres had two decorative paintings
books published. Somehow the owner of a fabric company got a
copy of the books and sent them to a manufacturer who used
her designs on fabric. But what makes her art especially
unique is that they are painted with her fingers!
