Artist

Passion. Curiosity. Tenacity. Faith. Respect. Love. Authenticity.

Growing up in California in our time meant working hard at home, and playing hard in our neighborhood - bloody knees, climbing trees and 20-foot fences, building forts, springboard diving; walking to school on railroad tracks, and doing other things sure to raise the arm-hair of many parents. We listened to some great music: Rush, Pink Floyd, & Led Zeppelin.

We ranged from 7 to 21, played early edition "Dungeons & Dragons" on a rusty ping-pong table, drew maps on graph paper, painted lead miniatures, and were happy with the black & white illustrations that jump-started our imaginations and a passion to create worlds to share with each other.

It was good, but summers in New Mexico were deep. Time at my cousins' ranch instilled a sense of independence and raw will. My horse saved my life three times - that can change a person, as can the dark monsoon-thunderclouds many miles away and rainbows that reach from one end of the sky to the other, and the smell of distant desert rain on red-iron soil.

Time at my Grandmother's Route 66 motel gave me a quiet within...faith, and a passion for art. She gave me my first exposure to classic artworks & music, turquoise jewelry, model sailing ships, stunning sunrises and sunsets ... and would walk beside me along an old canal on a dirt road named after my forefathers, teaching me how to traverse rattlesnake holes. Beauty and danger, at all times out in the desert.

In the summer heat, we would drink cream soda from an old 1950's refrigerator and have cream-soda wars - I'd have to clean up in a large claw-foot Victorian bathtub. I adored the house, underneath the motel lights, across from the railroad tracks - with its light-turquoise walls, skeleton keyholes and brass doorknobs. On the dirt roads my ancestors haunted, I learned to drive as a gangly-legged 10 year old, in my Great-Grandmother's rusty, leather-seated powder-blue 57 chevy.
My Grandmother taught me that while of mixed heritage I also have a little Native American blood in my veins - we are Daughters of the American Revolution, with Veteran forebears who have fought and/or died in every war tracing back to the American Revolution. I learned a quiet respect there.

In my adult years, I've travelled, lived in a beautiful country in the South Pacific, worn various hats: lifeguard, teacher, designer, wife and artist...
I've been called 'odd' by neighbors because I can disappear behind closed doors and work with a fury; at other times I'm very much a people person. I enjoy both solo work and teamwork, love the energy of conventions, and work very well to a deadline. I like to be flexible but I can be stubborn... I prefer "tenacious"... when I know it really matters.

The real foundations of my work, other than the tenets of Composition, are the vault of emotions and memories within, and the things that make my heart race or put a smile on my face when I see them. I have a love for the past and a curiosity for the present - the world has been changing, but I see many things from the past that are treasures to hold onto.

I hope to breathe life into pieces that are like time-travellers: dancing across the barriers of time, singing like visual music, playing like a child full of energy... while paying my respects to great artists, and great people, past and present.