About Me

Spending the majority of my childhood in the Inland Northwest, I grew up with fields, mountains, lakes and rivers, big skies and exciting storms.  I spent hours as a young girl adventuring outside a small farm town in Idaho, catching tadpoles in the creek, chasing butterflies in the gardens and hunting for treasure in the local dump. To say I was, am, curious is a gross understatement.  I hungered to understand, to learn, everything about everything. To use all my senses to create connections and to study anything I could. One answer would only lead to more questions, and the cycle continued.  It continues to this day.

My fascination with light and perception probably began during a massive storm that came through northern Idaho when I was in the 2nd grade.  As the sun dipped below the heavy dark cloud cover on its way to set, the sky turned a bright  orange, the grass glowed an unnatural green.  Nothing was recognizable to me based on my experiences to that point. No one else in my family was paralyzed with awe as I was, no one stopped to take it in. I did not know if they even saw what I was seeing; thus, was born my resistance to believing we, as individuals, can ever really know the experience of another. That truth and reality are dependent on experience, perception and interpretation. In that moment the storm chaser in me was born, my head in the clouds for the rest of my life.

I moved from that small town to Spokane, Washington, and continued through school.  Although I was a successful student and liked well enough,

I was far more comfortable being an observer than a participant.

People, and how they interacted with one another and their environment, fascinated me. In middle school I finally got my hands on a multitude of mediums and dove into making art, striving to capture likeness and realism.  It was my way of explaining to others what I saw, if they wanted to listen. By high school, I knew I wanted to be a professional artist but I had no idea how to get there.  Being the oldest daughter in a tumultuous childhood home left little time or space for art.

Although my art teachers were extremely encouraging, I realized I would not be attending college.  I had no idea scholarships existed or that financial aid was an option.  My senior year of high school I gave birth to my first child, got married, graduated with honors, moved across country, and left my dreams behind. I never stopped being curious or chasing the sky.

After my fourth child was born, I did go to college.  At this point, the advice I received deterred me from pursuing a degree in art.  I needed to do the “responsible thing”.  I did, however, figure out how to do both.  In three years I received an Associates of Fine Arts and Associates of Arts from Spokane Falls Community College concurrently, and the world of painting opened up in front of me.  I fell in love with oil paint and charcoal. I continued to Eastern Washington University to attain my undergraduate degree in Geography, all the while painting and adding on a minor in studio art.

Fast forward through divorce, single parenthood, restaurant work, fine dining management, a new marriage with three young bonus children and an existing business to run, painting fell away. 

My curiosity still burned.

I watched the skies, danced in the rain, marveled at twilight and chased every storm I could. It was a long twelve years, but in 2023 I took an oil painting class at my alma mater, SFCC, and it all came rushing back.

So here we are, in 2024, ready to be the professional artist that curious little girl dreamed of being.