About the Artist

Tomi Grende Todaro (TT Grende) was born in Idaho in October 1977 to Ted and Barbara Grende . She was a spitfire from the moment she could make a sound. From the earliest times TT Grende created things and sculpted masterpieces in mud and dirt and anything else that would stick together. When she discovered crayons, she started drawing and everyone around marveled at her natural talent of making things on paper as well as mud and clay.

Joining her parents in the outdoors, she spent many leisure moments appreciating nature. She grew up camping and fishing and acknowledging life, loving nature and wildlife along with the natural humor that came with witnessing the little things not seen by most people. There were times, living in the Idaho areas, that Tomi was able to go prospecting with her family and enjoyed ghost towns and wild life along creek beds and paths less traveled.

Tomi's summers were full, even going to work with her dad in his logging truck allowed her to see what really is involved in the life of a logger as well as how caring they are in preserving nature and wildlife, By seeing this from there view and the humor in life’s little things. This kind of humor is displayed in the bronzes she has in the works and will be showcased in the near future.

Tomi was encouraged in her art career by her Aunt Carol, the renowned sculpture Artist C.A. Grende, who mentored her through her first pieces and showed her how to bring out the realism in her sculptures. Carol also gave her an appreciation of history as she marveled at the creations of many Lewis and Clark monuments that now leave a legacy across the United States. Tomi was inspired to do a sculpture piece of Mrs. Marcus Whitman and their daughter, called Courage and Strength-Naecissa Prentiss Whitman and Alice Clarissa, who pioneered the Walla Walla Washington, area where Tomi spent her high school years. She felt the spiritual pull of the Marcus Whitman family and their story as she visited the Whitman museum in 2003 and felt the need to go further with that prompting to immortalize, in bronze, this special woman and her daughter who drowned at age 2 in the Walla Walla River,.

T.T. Grende moved to Montana in 2008 at the request of her aunt Carol. Although a sadness entailed and her aunt passed on, Tomi is proud to carry on the Grende heritage of women in Art. This Tomi will do with pride and will carry the memory of her late aunt as she works on each piece. She comments to many that she feels her aunt looking over her shoulder and guiding her even today in her sculptures.