About the Artist

Go out to walk with a painter, and you shall see for the first time groups, colors, clouds and keepings. Ralph Waldo Emerson

Color is my candy, the contours of landscapes my meditation, and capturing a sense of place, with my palette and paint brushes, is my ongoing spiritual awakening.

I grew up in a landscape of strip malls and tract homes in the hazy smog filled basin of the San Fernando Valley. Disappearing orange groves and ranches left the area mostly devoid of natural open space. I lived for my summers in the San Bernardino Mountains with the chocolaty sweet resin smell of the sugar pines, the sassy squawks of the Stellar Jays, the drumming of the Pileated Woodpeckers, and the star filled night skies. 

It is of no surprise that I ended up making my home in Santa Cruz, with its endless and varied natural landscapes. As an art major at UCSC, I learned the value and joy of plein air painting. By immersing myself in the outdoor elements, I could have a full sensory experience with which to create paintings that evoked the feelings of that particular landscape at that particular time. 

An early painting professor, Alan Gussow, taught that there is a difference between an environment and a place. An environment serves to "sustain our bodies" where a place that we experience deeply can serve to "support our spirits."  He would explain that, "a place is a piece of the whole environment that has been claimed by feelings...a resource that sustains our humanity. We are homesick for places, we are reminded of places, it is the sounds and smells and sights of places which haunt us and against which we often measure our present." He also taught that artists have the unique ability to share their encounters of places by making them visible: to translate the particular flavors of light, sound, smell, and texture so that others may also feel unfamiliar places.

After earning my Masters in Education at UCSC, I spent decades as a high school art teacher for Santa Cruz City Schools. Focused on giving my students the best art experience possible, I regularly took them out of the classroom to museums in the Bay Area, exposing them to many great artists and challenging their preconceptions of art. Working mostly with a population of reluctant learners and disenfranchised youth I helped build their visual skills, vocabulary and self-confidence. I taught about the art of world cultures and the varied ideas about artistic expression of a culture's unique sense of place. From my students, I also learned a lot and now am focusing my time returning to my personal art expression, both outdoors and in my studio.

Although my most happy place is painting outdoors, I also love my studio time. It's a place for me to play music, create different types of art,  and draw inspiration from my library of art books. Studio time is a different kind of rhythm and focus where I may need to exercise my sensory memories, utilize pure imagination, or resolve aesthetic problems with different resource materials. 

Exhibitions

Santa Cruz Open Studios 2025

Santa Cruz Art League Membership Exhibit 2025

95th Annual Juried Statewide California Landscape Exhibit (Santa Cruz Art League)

Santa Cruz Open Studios 2026

Memberships

California Art Club (Monterey Chapter)

Santa Cruz Art League