Artist Statement

As California native, I have been creating artwork inspired by the unusual forms found in nature all my life. In college, I studied a broad range of media including, Photography, Computer Graphics, Drawing, Painting, Ceramics, Printmaking and Crafts. After graduating with a BFA from California State University, Fullerton I took a teaching position at a local high school. The raw emotion of young artists keeps me motivated. As an Artist, I identify with Georgia O’Keefe, Edward Weston, Salvador Dali, Max Ernst, and Eva Hess. I spent some time living in the desert reading volumes of Carl Jung’s work. All that undisturbed silence had to have an effect on me and my work. I think I hear that silence echoed still in my pieces. Leaves, seed pods, plant forms always symbolize life to me. Sometimes I like to capture the rawness of the forms as I find them. I strive to capture life in the moment. Like Edward Weston, I love it when a form I find looks like something else. I try to manipulate that to emphasis and deny it as well. Like Georgia O’Keefe denying the sexuality of her of pieces. Other times I like to combine plant forms with figures or use dream imagery. These pieces are more narrative. I try to combine the playful and the painful, birth and death in the same breath. That’s what life is right?