MILWAUKEE — Retirement is a time when some people decide to stop working and slow down their pace in life. But for May Klisch, it turned into a full-time professional art career.

After spending a long time in marketing and communications, Klisch said she was ready to retire at age 62. That didn’t mean she was ready to stop growing.

“You know, I’ve always heard that people who retire without a plan, expire without a plan,” said Klisch.

Klisch said her plan was to try something she was told she was no good at ever since she was little.

(Spectrum News 1/Wendy Strong)

“I failed art in high school in Singapore and how ridiculous is that anybody fails art in high school, but I did,” she said.

Just shy of five decades later, Klisch said she decided to pick up her paintbrush again. She said at first, it was a hobby. She never dreamed it would become her “second act.”

Klisch now sells her work locally, nationally and internationally and has received many accolades.

(Spectrum News 1/Wendy Strong)

“I’m approaching my 70th birthday this year and I can hardly believe it. It feels seven years of art just flew by,” said Klisch.

This year Professional Dimensions named Klisch to design its Imprint Award, which recognizes women making a “lasting mark” in their career, community and collaborations.

As this year’s honored artist, Klisch has painted portraits of the two 2024 Imprint Award-winners, Catrina Crane and Vicki Martin. Crane is the director of business relationships of Menomonee Valley Partners and Martin is president of Milwaukee Area Technical College.

Catrina Crane (left) and Vicki Martin (right) are recipients of Professional Dimension's Imprint Awards. (Spectrum News 1/Wendy Strong)

A reception for Klisch will be held at Alverno College on March 27.

Klisch said she believes she was chosen for her honor to design the award partly because of her paintings of the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Portraits of the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg painted by Klisch. (Spectrum News 1/Wendy Strong)

“It really was to celebrate her as a very powerful woman, not because she was loud but because she was so smart and her conviction to the women’s movement was very significant to me,” said Klisch.

Klisch said she hopes to inspire others, just as Justice Ginsburg influenced her. She said she believes it’s never too late to follow your childhood dreams.

“Find that little passion in yourself, go backwards to when you were perhaps a child or still young and you had this burning passion for something,” she said.