Born and raised in Washington, DC, Fink has been peering at the world through a camera lens since the age of ten. She acquired her life-long curiosity about the arts and sciences while roaming the galleries of the Smithsonian Institution. Her father — a physical scientist who trained as a glassblower — encouraged her to ask questions and find her own answers. Fink began beachcombing during family forays to the Chesapeake Bay and Atlantic coast, first collecting sharks’ teeth that washed up on shore. She continues to haul rocks and found objects from beaches and sites around the world, and has amassed a collection of geologic stories to form a dry riverbed in her back yard.
Ms. Fink received a B.S. in Broadcasting and Film, and a Masters of Education degree in Media and Technology, from Boston University. From 1973 to 1974, she was an instructor of Communication Arts classes at Becker Junior College in Worcester, Massachusetts, teaching photography, design, and television studio production. In 1977, she traveled throughout Japan with the band Santana during their 20-city concert tour, manually operating a multiple-image rear-screen projected slideshow.
While working in the Exhibition Design and Preparation department at the Oakland Museum in the late 1970s, Fink was first introduced to the Society of Six California Colorists, whose work inspired and influenced her desire to explore color and light through painting. She enrolled in her first painting class at UC Berkeley Extension in 1982, continuing her paintings studies in workshops and classes at the California College of the Arts.
With a treasury of family, friends, and favorite beaches on both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, Fink frequently travels across the United States. The EBMUD exhibition Above and Below the Surface: An Atlas was her first solo show.