“I wanted to see the shimmering threads that hold it all together. And I wanted to know why we love the world, why the most ordinary scrap of meadow can rock us back on our heels in awe.”
— Robin Wall Kimmerer in Braiding Sweetgrass
By learning how to see and think in paint, and sometimes how to struggle in paint, I enter a different kind of imaginative territory. I’m looking and also bringing everything that is with me: my perceptions, thoughts, associations, memories, senses. The subject is not just what’s in front of me. The subject is also that story I bring to the participation, the marks I make, and the cooperation of the painting itself. The motifs and processes I’m drawn to result in the representation of some aspect of reality. But I’m less interested in an accurate description than a sincere experience. And then there’s the small miracle of how a simple two-dimensional surface covered with marks of paint and shapes of color becomes vibrant with its own attractive logic. This creative aspect of taking in a subject and bringing a painting to life is pure magic to me. The finished work is a record of seeing, teasing out, battling, painting, excavating, painting over … it’s all in there in the end, even what you can’t see on the surface.
I live in the suburbs of Philadelphia in Chester County, PA. My experience as a painter began when studying interdisciplinary humanities at Penn State University. After college in the 1990s I served as a founding director for the Lancaster, PA-based nonprofit group New Art Voices, which provided nontraditional venues and multi-media exhibitions for regional artists. Around that time I also began a 30-year career in public relations that, along with raising two daughters, would occupy much of my life. But in recent years painting has again become an emphasis. A number of art schools, along with their incredible faculties of painters who generously teach, have been invaluable learning resources for me. These organizations include Winslow Art Center, Washington Studio School, Wayne Art Center, and Penn Studio School of Art.
Independent Study / 2018–current
Bachelor of Interdisciplinary Humanities, Penn State University
Associate of Science, Elizabethtown College
MH Art Gallery & Studio Urban Takes Juried Exhibition, Juror Steve Wilson / Marietta, PA / 2026
Chester County Art Association Members Show / West Chester, PA / 2026
Wayne Art Center Regional Juried Spring Open, Juror Christine Lafuente / Wayne, PA / 2025
SECOND PLACE — Oxford Arts Alliance National Juried Exhibition All Things Being Equal – Meditations on Balance, Juror Lisa Bartolozzi / Oxford, PA / 2024
Wayne Art Center Fall Members Juried Exhibition, Juror William Perthes / Wayne, PA / 2024
MH Art Gallery & Studio / Marietta Art Alive Light Within Juried Exhibition / Marietta, PA / 2024
Chester County Art Association Members Show / West Chester, PA / 2024
MH Art Gallery & Studio / Marietta Art Alive Night Trees Juried Exhibition / Marietta, PA / 2023
MH Art Gallery & Studio Plus Six Invitational Art Exhibition / Marietta, PA / 2023
Wayne Art Center Regional Juried Spring Open Exhibition, Juror Peter Van Dyck / Wayne, PA / 2023
MH Art Gallery & Studio / Marietta Art Alive Spaces Within Regional Juried Exhibition, Juror Heidi Leitzke / Marietta, PA / 2023
Philadelphia Sketch Club 2023 Domenic DiStefano Memorial Works on Paper Juried Exhibition, Juror Mick McAndrews / Philadelphia / 2023
Chester County Art Association Members Show / West Chester, PA / 2022
Oxford Arts Alliance National Juried Exhibition, Juror Kyle Staver / Oxford, PA / 2022
Oxford Arts Alliance Plein Air in the Parks Exhibition / Oxford, PA / 2022
Wayne Art Center Members Juried Exhibition, Juror Paul DuSold / Wayne, PA / 2021
Chester County Art Association Members Show / West Chester, PA / 2021
Wayne Art Center Expressions of Radnor / Wayne, PA / 2017
Lancaster Museum of Art Open Award Show (Honorable Mention) / Lancaster, PA / 1995
The Brewery Gallery at Bube’s Brewery Two-Person Exhibit with Kassie Schelling / Mount Joy, PA / 1995
Lancaster Museum of Art Open Award Show / Lancaster, PA / 1994
Millersville University New Art Voices Invitational / Millersville, PA / 1993
New Art Voices Tobacco Warehouse Exhibition / Lancaster, PA / 1993
Penn State Harrisburg / Harrisburg, PA / 1994
Harrisburg Area Community College / Lancaster, PA / 1993
