I'm a native of Chicago, and have always been a huge fan of people- and nature-watching.
My fascination is really stories - the stories of people I see in everyday life, the stories of nature. My
work incorporate many of my loves: painting, stories of people,
Nature, animals, and the natural sciences. And that's what I believe
true art should be - a way for us to share our passions, feelings, visions, and
thoughts with everyone else.
Fascination with our relationship to the natural world has been with me since I was a young girl. In fact, my
artistic career started with creating my own illustrated
nature and conservation books (now the term would be Sustainability). My first self-published book met with rave
reviews in my third grade class - its subject was how we humans could impact the earth less and leave a lighter
footprint. Of course, that was the 70s and my audience was a bunch of 8 year olds so I had a pretty good chance of success :)
At the encouragement of a family friend who noted my artistic
leanings, after high school I attended The American Academy of Art in
Chicago where I studied still life, portraiture, and the human figure.
In my current work, I seek to integrate this earlier, classical study
with my more contemporary, somewhat looser style. And after art school,
I had a fear of starving so I went back to University and obtained a
Bachelor's degree in Geology. But I still painted.
I finally achieved one of my interim goals of being a "pro" painter after studying
under Matt Smith, Ralph Oberg, Dan Young, and Scott Mattlin.
In the last few years, I have studied the human figure and
portrait painting - both fun and valuable painting lessons at the same time. I also love animals - their shapes, colors, sounds, habits, and goofiness entrance me. While they seem disparate subject matter, they really are not. We humans are very dependent on the natural world, and especially animals. I visualize our interdependency like the twisting strands of DNA - each side on parallel courses, but intertwined and joined together along the way. So I am exploring integrating
these two areas next. If I'm lucky, my work will also help to educate and bring
attention to the dependency we have on our environment and its health.