Madeline Ligenza is the youngest of seven children raised in a coal mining town in Pennsylvania. She later moved to Vermont and is currently residing in Damariscotta, Maine. Madeline grew up in the rolling mountains at the base of the Pocono Plateau, a setting that inspired her lifelong love for nature and the outdoors. Beyond her locale, childhood visits from her uncle, a film editor in Hollywood, nurtured her inspiration through the sharing of his photography and artwork. Not having any formal art training available to her in small town Pennsylvania, her love of Art fell to the side.
Over the years she dabbled in photography and decided to combine her love of nature and passion for photography to start a photography company and online presence called Nature Is Free Photography. She is a self taught photographer/artist whose artistic side was enabled when she moved to Maine and took one art class from Sam Cady at the Farnsworth Art Museum. This provided the foundation for her reawakened passion to create. Beyond Gouache, she enjoys working with oil pastel and Acrylic and mixing the three mediums to highlight the bold colors so often found in the light and shadows of the world.