Born June 21, 1935, in Phoenix, Arizona, Diane Divelbess has been “an artist all her life.”  She received a BA degree from Scripps College and an MFA from the Claremont Graduate College (now University) in California.

Following graduate school, Diane did further work in education at California State University Los Angeles and Fresno, and studied intaglio printmaking and silk-screen printing privately with artists Nick De Matties and Jack Duganne.

Diane was a tenured member of the art faculty at California State Polytechnic University in Pomona. She was an art professor for 27 years and chaired the Art Department for eight years. Diane is also a past-president and life member of the Los Angeles Printmaking Society.

Painting, drawing, and various printmaking techniques are among Diane’s specialties. She has exhibited her art along the West Coast, starting in California and later in Washington State, where she moved to be with her now-spouse Army Colonel (ret)  Grethe Cammermeyer (also an OUTWORDS interviewee), in 1990. Diane is active in the arts community on Whidbey Island.  She was a member of the Whidbey Island Arts Council, is a past president of the Island County Fair Association and continues to direct the Fine Art Exhibition at the Fair. She currently serves as chair of the City of Langley Arts Commission. Her paintings, drawings and prints have been exhibited most recently at Beretich Gallery in California, and at her studio and gallery on Whidbey Island, Washington. In 2012, Diane and Grethe were among the first same-sex couples to marry in Washington State.

OUTWORDS interviewed Diane at the soaring wood-and-glass home that she and Grethe built on Whidbey Island, a short ferry ride north of Seattle. Diane is soft spoken and, at first, a bit reserved. But her memory is very detailed; and her account of staying up all night with Grethe on an Oregon beach, waiting for Grethe’s sons to haul in their crab pots, is possibly the best first-date story that OUTWORDS has yet recorded.