Of her childhood there, she says "I was born into a community of depressed, Mormon Swedish farmers, who put away winter black on Memorial Day in favor of summer navy blue.
[5] Taking scraps of canvas or matting from her parents' frame shop, she started painting scenes of Diamond Head with various combinations of waves, rocks, and palm trees, and sold them on the roadside to make a living after losing her race for U.S. House of Representatives.
She wrote and illustrated four art and prose coffee table books, and sold over three hundred thousand prints and 150,000 mugs (through Jack in the Box, JC Penney, Wal-Mart, and QVC).
They had many pets (horses, dogs, cats, chickens and peacocks) and the farm became known as a home for stray or unwanted animals.
Roosters who had lost fights were left at the farm, and an orphaned mongoose was lowered over the fence in a cat carrier.
That same year, in a waiting room, she opened a magazine to a page with an ad for the Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program at New York University's (NYU) Tisch School of the Arts.
Diana met Brian Feinstein in the graduate program, where they collaborated on many songs and short musicals, finally writing the musical Mimi Le Duck, starring Eartha Kitt, which opened at the New World Stages on November 6, 2006 and closed on December 3, 2006, after 58 performances.