her confidence and left her professors struggling to critique. After graduating Cleary applied late to graduate programs and happened upon an opportunity to spend her first year of graduate school in Rome, for the Tyler School of Art. While in Rome, Cleary studied the work of Caravaggio and remained inspired by his work for much of her career. After a year in Rome, Cleary finished her graduate studies and received her MFA in 1968, at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Cleary moved to upstate New York, where she briefly taught at a state university in Oswego. Shortly thereafter she moved to Washington, D.C. in 1970, where she would remain for the rest of her life. Cleary taught at the University of the District of Columbia for 30 years. She was beloved by her students and by many of the local artists in Washington, D.C. She was a collector of local art and supporter of local artists. She was a longtime member of the Arts Club of Washington. After a couple years in Washington, D.C., she moved into Beverly Court Apartments—now Beverly Court Cooperative. It was the epicenter of art in the 1970s for Washington, D.C. and Cleary was the star. Beverly Court housed artists such as Allan Bridge, Yuri Schwebler, Jonathan Meader, and Angelo Hodick. Cleary would host dinner parties for the building, and a communal living oarrangement f sorts took place. The doors to apartments were often open ,and artists collaborated on art together. Beverly Court was bought by its residents in 1979 ,after most of the artists had left, and it became the first cooperative in Washington, D.C. It was during this time, in 1981, that Cleary was briefly married to a man named Tommy, who was a young art student from Denmark. They were divorced about a year later. In 1996, Cleary experienced a traumatic event while traveling abroad. Cleary visited Kazakhstan that year on a goodwill art trip and was there to lecture about art. Cleary was attacked by a Kazakh artist, with whom she had only a brief meeting. The attack shook Cleary and she left the country quickly in a state of denial. It took Cleary several months to start to examine her feelings and work through them. She ended up creating an evocative series titled, "The Rape Series" after the event. The series features paintings of Cleary's face, shaped in horror and pain,