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“This voracious vision, reaching beyond the ‘visual givens,’ opens upon a texture of Being… The eye lives in this texture as a man lives in his house.”
— Maurice Merleau-Ponty in Eye and Mind
Artist's statement
As a painter working from observation and memory, I’m most interested in the painting process as an embodied, sincere way of encountering the world and transforming that experience into meaning.
I hope to offer a degree of distortion and/or incomplete resolution in my work, corresponding to the subjective nature of perception and leaving space for both the painter and viewer to keep looking and imagining. A resulting openness might show in certain gestural marks or dissolving edges, in selective areas of ambiguity or emerging order, in peculiar choices, and in areas left distilled or unresolved.
In this sense, rather than depicting an object from a logical detached point of view, a painting can serve as an expression of the seeing itself as an ongoing shifting construction – a lived experience still open to participation and revision.
Biography
I live in the outer suburbs of Philadelphia in Chester County, Pennsylvania. Some of my earliest Pennsylvania German ancestors sailed to Pennsylvania in the late 17th and early 18th Centuries, created farmsteads, and served as patriots in the Revolutionary War. I grew up in rural Lebanon County surrounded by practical, hardworking people, seeped in views of rolling farmland and rustic vernacular architecture.
My experience painting and exhibiting my work began when studying interdisciplinary humanities at Penn State University in the late 1980s. After college I continued to paint and show my work and served for several years as a founding director for the Lancaster, PA-based nonprofit group New Art Voices, which provided nontraditional venues and multi-media exhibitions in support of regional artists.
Around that time I also began a 30-year career in strategic communications that, along with raising two daughters, would occupy much of my time. This professional experience would contribute to my deep appreciation for how the stories we encounter, and how we incorporate them into our narrative identity, help shape everything we reach for and create.
Painting sporadically throughout those decades, but with a painter’s way of experiencing the world firmly rooted, I once again found my way back to a dedicated practice in 2018. My work today centers mostly on contemporary landscapes and still lifes in oil. A number of art schools and their faculties of painters who generously teach have been invaluable resources for me including Winslow Art Center, Washington Studio School, Wayne Art Center, and Penn Studio School of Art. I’ve been fortunate to study with painters Claudia Rilling, Christine LaFuente, Tracy Everly, Gage Opdenbrouw, and Martin Campos, who have deeply influenced my growth as a painter.
Education
Independent Studio Practice / 2018-current
Graduate Coursework in Interdisciplinary Humanities, Penn State University / 1992-1995
Bachelor of Humanities, Penn State University / 1987
Associate of Science, Elizabethtown College / 1984
Exhibitions
Group
CURRENT:
Art On Bridge guest artist / Phoenixville, PA / October 8 – December 8 2026
Tredyffrin Arts Commission Juried Exhibition Valley Forge — Then and Now / Berwyn, PA / October 5 – December 10, 2026
PAST:
Phoenixville Art Walk at Silly Little Art Shop / Phoenixville, PA / 2026
MH Art Gallery & Studio Juried Exhibition Urban Takes, 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
Oxford Arts Alliance National Juried Exhibition All Things Being Equal – Meditations on Balance (Second Place), Juror Lisa Bartolozzi / Oxford, PA / 2024
Wayne Art Center Fall Members Juried Exhibition, Juror William Perthes / Wayne, PA / 2024
MH Art Gallery & Studio Juried Exhibition Light Within / Marietta, PA / 2024
Chester County Art Association Members Show / West Chester, PA / 2024
MH Art Gallery & Studio Juried Exhibition Night Trees / Marietta, PA / 2023
MH Art Gallery & Studio Invitational Art Exhibition Plus Six / Marietta, PA / 2023
Wayne Art Center Regional Juried Spring Open Exhibition, Juror Peter Van Dyck / Wayne, PA / 2023
MH Art Gallery & Studio Regional Juried Exhibition Spaces Within, Juror Heidi Leitzke / Marietta, PA / 2023
Philadelphia Sketch Club Juried Exhibition 2023 Domenic DiStefano Memorial Works on Paper, 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 Exhibition Plein Air in the Parks / 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 Exhibition 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
Solo
Penn State Harrisburg / Harrisburg, PA / 1994
Harrisburg Area Community College / Lancaster, PA / 1993