Ms. Fairlie is a Professor Emerita of Art at Sul Ross State University in Alpine, Texas, where she taught watercolor, oil painting, drawing, figure drawing and printmaking since 1996. She studied painting for four years at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, received her Bachelor of Fine Arts from Texas Women's University and her Master of Fine Arts at the School of Visual Arts/University of North Texas. She has many hours in metals and jewelry making, studying metals under Mark Diamond, Val Link, Bud Green and Harlan Butt. In the late 90’s she took up slump glass and began experimenting with glass jewelry and vessels! Her dyed silk scarves are a natural outgrowth of her background in watercolor. Dyed to match the colors of the wire wrapped or cold set cabochons, the "Cabochon Silks" (c) create unique combination of color and material.

Nationally recognized for her watercolors, she has had numerous solo exhibitions and participated in many national juried exhibitions including Watercolor USA, the National Watercolor Society, the Philadelphia Watercolor Society, WAS-H and the Arizona Aqueous. She served on the board of Directors for the National Watercolor Society as Newsletter Editor and holds Signature status in Watercolor USA Honor Society, the
Philadelphia Watercolor Society and elite signature status in the Watercolor Art Society Houston (WAS-H). She has received an Honored Alumni Award from the University of North Texas, School of Visual Arts and an Outstanding Faculty Award from Sul Ross State University. In 2016, she was the Honored Artist at Alpines' ArtWalk. She has
extensive experience as a juror of exhibitions and teaching workshops.

Her work is represented privately in the USA, Mexico, New Zealand, Japan, and the Czech Republic and included in the corporate collections of Merrill Lynch, TetraPak,(Sweden), the Mary Kaye Family, Sul Ross State University and the Houston Oil of Midland, Texas.