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The timeline below is largely based on Marcia's artist resumé circa 1997.
- 1930: born in the small desert town of Taft, California, to Muriel Bothwell Musser and Edgar Hale Musser, a petroleum geologist. Has an older brother, Mac, but few friends; spends much of her time alone. The desert makes a huge impression.
- 1942?: family moves to Glendale, California. More friends through band and summer camps in the mountains.
- 1947-51: Stanford University, where she meets lifelong friend Joan-lee Woehler, who introduces her to Gus Pagels, her future husband.
- 1951 B.A. in Art, Stanford University
- 1951-2: a year studying art at the Sorbonne, Paris. Monet becomes major influence.
- 1952: Marries Gus Pagels. He is hired as a middle school teacher in Napa, California. Marcia paints vineyards and mustard fields.
- 1954: Birth of first child, Chris. Moves to East Palo Alto, California. Gus finishes doctorate in education at Stanford. Marcia paints oak hills.
- 1956: moves to San Mateo; a tract home in the mudflats south of Coyote Point, site of a new community college where Gus teaches English. Marcia paints rocks and tidepools at Pebble Beach and Bean Hollow; fills the garage with art.
- 1957: 2nd child, Andrea.
- 1959: 3rd child, Erica.
- 1959-1968: studies with Richard Bowman, pioneer of fluorescents and acrylics; a mentor and friend for decades. His circle includes:
- artist/poet Kenneth Patchen
- activist Miriam Patchen
- painter Gordon Onslow Ford
Other friends in the arts include
- poet Barbara Gordon Paine
- watercolorist Charles Paine
- poet/novelist Al Young
- Joan-lee Woehler, now a drama teacher/director
- 1960-1974: Marcia explores the coast, Sierras, Cascades, deserts, and Rockies, camping every summer and most spring and fall holidays
- 1963: moves to an Eichler home in the San Mateo Highlands overlooking San Francisco Bay. Never moves again. Marcia meets the Nyes, lifelong friends and patrons: Ruth, Lorca, Adam, Ariel, Kristin, and Johanna. Gus teaches a year or two nearby, at the new hilltop campus of San Mateo Community College, then for over two decades at Cañada College in Redwood City.
- 1963-1976: shows her art more and more, first in studio but soon in San Mateo restaurants, shops, banks, the library and city hall.
- 1968: the feminist movement encourages her to treat her art seriously. Starts to catalog paintings and photograph them before sale. Estimates 100 earlier paintings sold or given away unrecorded (many of these lost works show rock formations along the San Mateo coast that pass for abstract to the non-local eye).
- 1968-69: switches from oils to acrylic. Starts to experiment with thick relief and collage-paintings.
- 1969: teaching credential in art from Cal State, Hayward.
- 1970 on: growing involvement with peace movement, Native American rights and environmentalism. Marches against Vietnam war.
- 1970-1972: works as a substitute art teacher in local high schools. Finds teaching less satisfying than painting. Starts doing larger, more ambitious works and entering shows.
- 1974: second prize, watercolors, Foster City Art League Annual Show, Foster City, CA
- 1974: first prize, florals, for Dune Poppies, San Mateo County Fair, San Mateo, CA. The prize comes with a one-year scholarship to the San Francisco Academy of Art
- 1974-1975: studies at the San Francisco Academy of Art
- 1976?: large show in Iron Pot Restaurant, which burns. Many paintings destroyed.
- 1977: first grandchild born, Joshua
- 1979: second grandchild born, Solara
- 1980s: active in peace group Beyond War, and works at Stanford Library. Less time to paint, fewer solo shows; more contributions to group shows such as...
- 1980: "Barbara Cohn, Patricia Lapp, Marcia Pagels, and Mary Haight," Garden Cafe Gallery, Burlingame, CA
- 1988: "Flower Influenced Art," sponsored by Arts Commission and County Fair, S.F., CA
- 1989: "Windows: A Suite of Original Prints", College of San Mateo, CA
- 1990s: regular sales through Judy Campbell's Coastal Gallery in Half Moon Bay encourage her to resume larger works, especially series of beach/dunescapes and desert wildflowers
- 1992: founds Sustainable San Mateo County, a watchdog organization publishing annual reports on ecological, economic and social indicators for the county
- 1997: first great-grandchild born, Cheyenne
- 2000: husband Gus dies of Guillaume-Barré syndrome at age 76.
- 2002: son Chris starts professionally showing dream art in San Francisco
- 2003: joint show of Marcia's nature paintings and son Chris's ecotopian globes
- 2006-7: progressive bronchiectosis gradually limits painting to smaller works.
- 2008: her last paintings, age 78. She estimates lifetime production at 300 paintings.
- 2009: daughter Andrea starts professionally showing her pastel landscapes in Portland
- 2010: Marcia dies of lung disease a few weeks before 80th birthday.
- 2011: memorial gallery established
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