(CBS) – Becoming an artist is something Annie King Phillips took up late in life, and now her amazing pictures are getting critical acclaim.

The 93-year-old Naperville woman is someone you should know, CBS 2’s Harry Porterfield says.

First a teacher and then a healthcare administrator, at 75 she began creating collages from bits and pieces of paper and fabric.

“My collages tell a story. They tell a story of a part of my life a part of my life, a part of my being that I need to express,” she says.

Annie is self-taught.

She was born and raised in Washington, D.C. and spent most of her life there until two years ago, when she moved to the western suburbs.

Annie says sometimes people mistake her pieces as paintings.

“I defy them to show me any brush marks. I wonder if they can even tell where I have put the papers together,” she says.

She has won a number of awards with her collages. She will tell you she doesn’t make collages to sell but they are for sale.

Annie has produced 300 collages. She says that she uses the events in her life and the things she remembers as her inspiration. She takes both the good and the painful to make something beautiful.

“It is my life. I breathe it in and I breathe it out,” she says.