Michele Toepp Baran has been a creative involved in the artistic process as long as she can recall. An avid fan of the BIG packs of Crayola crayons as a child, then moving into drawing, painting, mixed media, and ceramics through her teen years, she was chosen as "Future Picasso" of her Auburn High School class in 1997.

Into college, she continued her appreciation of art at SUNY Cortland, yet stepped away from the practice herself as she pursued English and Education in her degree studies and grew in her relationship to an exceptional emerging airbrush artist and custom painter she met as a lousy waitress at the soda counter of Green Shutters in Auburn, NY at 17 years old. This partnership led to marriage, children, and a creative collaboration spanning decades, as JT's Custom Paint Garage became the premier custom paint and airbrush shop in Upstate New York and throughout the East Coast while Michele supported the work of the growing business, worked at the local university, and raised their children.

As the children grew and the potential of an empty nest came closer to reality, Michele returned to the craft for herself once again as she entered into her self-described "Van Gone Era." Her soccer mom days were over, and she had space once again to explore what made her own heart beat. 

Through the early 2020's M.T. Baran returned to the practice and first began working in oils: a medium that had fascinated her since the 1990s. She focused on the nature scapes of her own backyard and beyond. Landscaping her woods and ponds into something reminiscent of Monet's Gardens, she studied tree, plant, water, light, and her Great New York State Fair goldfish in the natural while expressing her inner existential angst with both calm and chaos in her emerging works. 

Utilizing pigment across mediums, she works in ink, oil, acrylic, wood, and revisits classics with new perspectives. When her sincere faith and practice mixed with insatiable curiosity and she discovered the language of metamodernism, she knew this was her artistic path. Sincere, yet clearly aware of the realities of the world as it is, her art is a testimony of her belief in life, purpose, and a greater good. 

Key Influences Include: Georgia O'Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz (art, partnership, and time at Lake George), Vincent Van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, Claude Monet, M. C. Escher, 1950s Mid-Century Modernism, Nature, Faith, Custom Car/Bike Culture, 1980s & 90s Pop Culture, Internet-Era Meme Culture, the Finger Lakes, Adirondacks, and New York State vistas.