At age four, Claudia Marseille was diagnosed with a severe hearing loss. With determination and the help of powerful hearing aids, she learned to hear, speak and lipread. She was mainstreamed in public schools in Berkeley, CA. After a few years in challenging jobs in the public policy field after graduate school, she realized she needed to find a profession more compatible with severe hearing loss. So, she turned to her early love, the visual arts. Claudia’s visual sensibility has always been strongly developed, perhaps because she relied more heavily on sight, specifically lip reading, to compensate for her lack of hearing. After earning master’s degrees in archaeology and public policy, and finally an MFA, she developed a career in photography and painting, a profession compatible with hearing loss. Claudia ran a fine art portrait photography studio for fifteen years before becoming a full-time painter. The Seagergray Gallery in Mill Valley, CA, represents her paintings and can be seen on her website.

She has played classical piano for much of her life; in her free time, she loves reading, watching movies, traveling, spending time with friends, and attending concerts and art exhibits. She and her husband live in Oakland and have one daughter.