ARTIST STATEMENT
I have drawn as long as I can remember. One early memory—I used a needle to incise crisp white lines in the black finish of my mother’s prized antique ebonized desk. I remember being punished as well! I perfected my analytical skills by practicing drawing ladies’ high heels. In third grade, I won a trip to the Nutcracker with my rendition of ballerinas.
The first of four daughters of an artist mother and minister father, I spent my childhood with an innate love of nature. Summers meant swimming in an Upstate New York glacial lake surrounded by shale pebble beaches. As a free-range seven-year-old in South Dakota, my adventures included rodeos, the circus, swash-buckling movies—my grandmother in tow—and hiking mica-flecked paths in the Black Hills.
Many years later I received a BFA in printmaking from Syracuse University, followed by an MFA in mixed media from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. To support myself in graduate school, I taught drawing.
As an adult, my artist husband and I moved to the Pacific Northwest, entranced by arid canyons and indigenous rainforests. Years of graphic design, first as an exhibit designer at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry and then for many years as the head of my own design firm taught me computer skills.
Today collage informs my work in both art and poetry. The juxtaposition of color and imagery are much the same in both mediums.
My inspirations and the focus of my artwork include family, reading, sewing, mythology, science, biology, astronomy, and geology—all lifelong passions.
BOOKS
