She recalled, "We lived in a small, plain house that my father built himself in a middle-class neighborhood, and the upper half was rented out so our space was very cramped.

My mother's taste inclined to roses and spring flowers, and I had ordinary things like Zinnias and bluets, but the glory of our yard was my father's dahlias.

Blaine's work had begun as "tightly realist" but transformed to an abstract style, which was inspired by artists such as Piet Mondrian, Fernand Leger, and Jean Helion.

[5] Blaine's association with the American Abstract Artists group led to her receiving her first solo exhibition, held at Greenwich Village's Jane Street Gallery, of which she was a founding member.

"[7] Blaine and many other young artists used the space to display and sell their works, raising funds from collectors and donors in New York and making a name for themselves through shared and solo exhibitions.

At this time, Blaine was working alongside Ida Fischer, Judith Rothschild, and other Abstract Expressionist artists under 25 years of age.

Blaine briefly lived and worked in Paris around 1950 with Larry Rivers, traveling across Europe and exhibiting with the American Abstract Artists group in France, Denmark, and Italy.

[1] Also during this time, Blaine was prominent among a prestigious circle of New York artists and poets which included John Ashbery, Frank O'Hara, Willem de Kooning, Kenneth Koch, Lee Krasner, Jane Freilicher, Leland Bell, Louisa Matthiasdottir, Robert De Niro Sr., and Rudy Burckhardt.

[1] In 1959, Blaine spent several months traveling and painting in Greece before contracting bulbospinal, or paralytic, polio while visiting Mykonos Island.

The subject matter was primarily landscapes of the Hudson River made from her apartment window, vases of flowers, still lifes, home interiors, or her garden at Gloucester, Massachusetts.

Art critic Clement Greenberg spoke highly of her work, describing Blaine's Great White Creature as “best in the show” at the annual exhibition of the American Abstract Artists in 1945.

As Blaine's practice continued, she began to experiment more with Abstract Expressionism, watercolor as a medium, and the repeating motif of a window view from an interior.

By 1959, despite her depleted health, Blaine was frequently traveling, painting landscape scenes in the Caribbean, Europe, New England, and more.

Blaine would convey this sense of celebration in her early abstractions inspired by jazz, recent unfurling petals of dahlias, or cushiony zinnias that testify to the abundant small miracles of the commonplace.

Much of her reclusive, personal style can be attributed to the intimate relationship between artist and nature, to which she was deeply in tune when living in rural Massachusetts.

In 1943, Blaine married Bob Bass, a French horn player who introduced her to good friends in painters Larry Rivers and Jane Freilicher.

[6] She lived for many years in a large apartment and studio in the building at 210 Riverside Drive with her life partner, artist Carolyn Harris.

[16] In 1973, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts honored Blaine with a solo exhibition that surveyed more than a decade of her work.