I have been an artist my whole adult life. After graduating with an Art Education degree from the University of Bridgeport, I briefly taught in Greenwich, before transitioning to a career as a clay artist. I produced functional stoneware, sculpture and architectural embellishments for about twenty years. I exhibited internationally, led art tours and taught workshops throughout the U.S. Following a devastating car accident, which ended that career, I received an M.A.E. in Fine Arts and Education from the Rhode Island School of Design. I then taught Art at New Canaan High School for twenty years, earning the award for Outstanding Art Educator from the state in 2000. Travel is my muse, and I have led art tours to Japan, Greece, and Italy. I co-led Art and Yoga retreats in Tuscany for nine years. I retired in 2006 and established a studio in Winsted, CT. I paint in a wide variety of media and have focused in the last eight years on painting with encaustic, [pigmented bee’s wax]. My art is exhibited nationally, and I offer private and group classes in my studio and encaustic workshops throughout the Northeast.
Featured Collection
Quarantine 2020 | Through a Crow’s Eye
The Spring of 2020 and Crows About a year ago, a murder of crows took up residence in our birch grove. I placed broken jewelry and bits of shiny stuff that I found on an old tree stump there to entice them to stay, -too many bears around for feeding them. Soon, they let me walk or sit among them to observe, sketch or photograph their quirky postures. They stayed for several months and I gathered wonderful images of these intelligent birds to use as visual resources for my paintings before they left. I have a studio at Whiting Mills, and painted these wonderful creatures in encaustic, [pigmented bee’s wax], to create a large body of work depicting stories I saw played out between them in that grove. Then the pandemic hit. Because of the Coronavirus quarantine in early Spring, I basically pivoted from my 900 sq. ft. studio, equipped with all kinds of media, tools, torches, visual resources, easels, etc. to my small kitchen table. Galleries closed, my classes and workshops were cancelled, and I was exiled from my creative space.
To anchor my days and to express what I was experiencing and observing, I began daily drawings. I used pen and ink on a small pad, well, many small pads. I wanted to inject some humor into the terror we were facing. Since I had previously been working with the subject of crows, I used a crow persona to convey experiences I had during that day. Basically, I was entertaining myself, or getting cathartic relief, with no real plan for these multiplying images. Some examples are a crow observing our elbow-bump “hug”, or a crow perched on a grocery cart following the arrows on the floor, or sewing a mask. After four months, I had around seventy images documenting that time. More importantly, that practice gave me purpose and relief in an otherwise rudderless SpringThe story I am telling, here, is my rediscovery of the life-line our innate creativity, whatever form that takes, offers us. We are not in normal times. The daily news, Covid 19, the economic shift and state protocols have unbalanced our previous lives and added undeniable anxiety for many of us. Having a regular practice of some pleasurable activity such as gardening, new learning of some kind, cooking, making music, crafts or taking up the arts can create an oasis in the middle of this siege of crises.I believe there is something inexhaustible in terms of what we are capable of or what is possible, as opposed to what it is society wants to measure or sell. In our society, creativity, like so much else, has become compartmentalized, assigned to specialists, and ripped out of everyday life. The creative impulse is in our DNA, everyone has access to it. Give yourself the gift of transforming ordinary stuff into a new creation, something transcendent over the mere raw materials. Creativity is not just a matter of manufacturing a product to be admired or sold. Rather it is to explore the act of creation as a way to awaken to our own voices, surprise ourselves, connect with the beauty and mystery of our own lives, and give us some respite from these worrisome times.
