76 PUNCHMAGAZINE.COM 2002, producing more realistic renderings of flowers that led to her first solo exhibit. As the years passed, Ramona launched her own hairstyling business, while continuing to paint and showcase her work to German and Swiss collectors. Then, in 2011, a major plot twist: the chance for her husband to relocate to Silicon Valley with a German software company. Speaking limited English, the family settled in Palo Alto. “All of a sudden, I knew nothing. I understood nothing,” she recalls. “It makes you so humble.” Ramona signed up for ESL classes through the Palo Alto Adult School at Cubberley Community Center. As her sons did their homework, she applied herself to her own lessons, {home & design} flowers, but I’m not painting flowers. I paint humans.” Like flowers, she expands, humans are simultaneously delicate and strong: “We are beautiful, resilient and powerful beings, capable of blooming even in the face of adversity.” And it’s that tightly held belief, gleaned from her personal journey, that inspires her art. Raised in the Black Forest region of Germany, Ramona confides that she had a “very challenging childhood,” which drove her need for a creative outlet. After an intensive apprenticeship, she became a hairstylist in a prestigious salon, which also held art shows. “I always saw myself as an artist, too, because doing hair is art,” she smiles, recalling the intricate hand painting involved in a balayage highlight. After marrying and having two boys, she first applied paint to canvas in ABOVE: Blanc de Fleur 1 (72” x 48”); Ramona working in her San Carlos studio.
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