Bio (Abbreviated Version)

My artwork tends to explore joy and love and their significance.  The lens through which I see and experience life has been shaped significantly in relation to my mother’s passion for life, her extreme love, and her death, which occurred when I was 12.  My childhood experiences taught me to cherish joyful moments, family, and the truly important parts of life.

I am a practicing visual artist living in Oakland, California. I teach visual art classes and hold inquiry-based workshops which provide space for individuals to connect with themselves and honor their experience–using art as a vehicle.   One of my favorite projects consists of several self portraits.  Through these, I’ve attempted to convey a range of emotions–all of which relate to the love and loss I’ve experienced.  I relate color to emotion and digitally combine portraits to suggest that pain and joy exist simultaneously.  My work mirrors my interest in emotion, perspective, and the way in which art can bring these aspects out of us.  My aspiration is to use these concepts in my work to encourage learning about others and about ourselves.  



Bio (Extended Version) 

My artwork examines my emotions, the notion that both joy and pain exist together when considering life as a whole, and the concept that each individual possesses a unique and valid experience. 

Splashing around in a kiddie pool with my sister, while my parents and uncle sat in the backyard of our house in New Hampshire is a treasured memory of mine.  Everything felt perfect because we were all together.  Art is something I’ve enjoyed since I was young.  At six I desperately wanted to build an amusement park in our backyard and drew countless roller-coasters and carnival games.  I wanted to make people happy and at six, creating an amusement park that others could enjoy seemed like a great way to bring people together and to spread joy.

When I was seven, my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer.  No stranger to illness, my mother had extreme strength, courage, and hope.  She had already survived a rare heart condition which left her with a ten percent chance of survival since birth.  She did not place limits on herself, she squeezed every sweet ounce out of life, and enjoyed it as much as possible.  Throughout my mother’s battle with cancer, we moved in and out of homes—often living with my grandparents so that they could help out.  The lens through which I experience life has been shaped in relation to my mother’s passion for life, her extreme love, and her death, which occurred when I was 12.  My childhood experiences taught me to cherish joyful moments, family, and the important parts of life of which love is the significance.

I am a practicing visual artist living in Oakland, California. I teach visual art classes and hold inquiry-based workshops which provide space for individuals to connect with themselves and honor their experience–using art as a vehicle.  One of my favorite projects consists of several self portraits.  Through these, I’ve attempted to convey a range of emotions–all of which relate to the love and loss I’ve experienced.  The images vary in terms of line quality, movement, and abstraction.  For example, when dealing with emotions which I perceive as feeling heavy—such as anxiety– lines appear thicker and create more rigid shapes.  My intention is to demonstrate that life consists of moments that can be grotesque or disconcerting.  I also strive to inquire into the notion that the excruciating elements of life do not discount the joyous components.  The most agonizing moments may even enhance the pleasurable because they help us to understand pain.  When we know pain, we might appreciate joy on a new level.  I also experiment with associating color with emotion and digitally combining portraits related to a variety of emotions. This is done by layering sketches. 

Through this, my intention is to suggest that the difficult and the joyful are all part of one whole.  My work mirrors my interest in emotion, perception, perspective, and the way in which art can bring these aspects out of humans.  My aspiration is to use these concepts in my work in order to encourage learning about others as well as ourselves.