Biography

I grew up playing in apple orchards and dairy farm fields with nature and animals as my constant companions. When I was seven, I was drawing a picture of a cloud that turned into a woman's profile and I had a profound experience of absolute knowing that I was here to be an artist. Never doubting that, I drew and painted and became the school artist. My college years were at the University of Bridgeport, Connecticut. where I studied art history and art.

I felt that an artist needed to have a point of view so I made a decision to live in a big city (New York), richly (limousines and penthouses), humbly (adventuring in Northern California) and living off the land (commune outside of Vancouver, Canada). I wanted to have a career that would support but not interfere with my art, so I went to The Academy of Art, San Francisco. to study graphic design but chose instead to become a Sassoon-trained hairstylist. I continued to paint and draw and was commissioned to create murals and paintings for San Francisco businesses.

I moved to Santa Fe as a single mother and opened a hair salon that I have now owned for twenty years. I have been able to devote more time in the past few years to creating and showing my art. Growing a large organic vegetable garden, living on land that adjoins a wilderness area and camping at a Northern New Mexico lake slowed me down into a quiet state of being that gave me a greater appreciation of the wonders of nature. I am inspired by Earth rhythms, like the phases of the moon and the birth, growth, death and rebirth cycles of the seasons. Listening to Joseph Campbell's talks on mythology, I was impressed with the way different cultures all over the world express the human condition with very similar stories. The magic of nature and our common myths intrigue and inspire me. I have returned full circle to my childhood love of nature and her mysteries and I continue to paint and draw.