Meet the artist: Toni Rash

Oil painter, Watercolorist, and much more!

Toni was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio. Having graduated from Mayfield High, she attended Notre Dame College in South Euclid, Ohio, where she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1964. Her inspiration for art grew from her years within the Gothic architecture of NDC. Married to Dennis for fifty-five years, and with three grown children, Dennis (jr.), David, and Annemarie Comes, Toni Rash had her career in the field of education and as a guidance counselor in the Euclid City Schools, but continually pursued art as a secondary career, in addition to writing poetry, essays, and children’s literature.

Although Toni has worked in a variety of media, her most prolific works include oil painting in the genre of wildlife and portraiture. A major “body of work, Florida’s Flora & Fauna, was exhibited at Sanibel Island, Florida’s Ding Darling Wildlife and Nature Preserve in 2014, and viewed by thousands of visitors to the center. Earlier, in 2012, many of the artist’s Slovenian landscapes were toured in Ohio, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Washington, D.C.’s Slovenian Embassy by Jurcek Zmauc, Slovenian Consul General in the USA prior to his retirement where a reception was held in honor of Slovenia’s twentieth anniversary and collaboration with the United States. Upon the retirement of the Slovenian Consul General, Toni painted an oil portrait of Jurcek Zmauc, Consul General, which she presented at the Rotunda of Cleveland’s City Hall in 2013 (You Tube—Toni Rash) Click here to watch it!