Bio

Drawing. This is what I do. I remember driving my mother crazy looking for adequate surfaces on which to draw.   Anything would do.   The first few blank pages of books, old (or new) envelopes, the backs of whatever paper I could find (including, but not limited to, bills, receipts, report cards, etc).   Any blank spot, no matter how small, on any relatively flat piece of paper would be filled with my drawings soon after I scrounged it from the garbage or junk drawer. Margins of telephone books, storybooks, novels, all were fair game for me. I remember when my mother was in the hospital after the birth of my younger brother (and sixth sibling). This was 1968, before the days of progressive visitation policies, so my 3 sisters and 2 brothers and I were not allowed to visit. It was also back in the day when mothers were routinely kept in the hospital for a week or more after their child's birth. Naturally, we all missed our mom. My only option was to send some sort of gift with my father when he went to visit, and this, of course, would be a drawing. I was in third grade and apparently thought that the drawing should somehow reflect what I thought to be a well known biological process: digestion. So I drew a very detailed image of food entering the stomach through a series of long and winding tunnels. Each piece of food was instantly recognizable and, for some reason, still in tact, the person who was host to this bizarre scene possessing the quality of being able to ingest their food without benefit of mastication. Even more amazing, each piece of food had not only a face and limbs, but a tiny little parachute on its "back" which allowed it to float safely down to a tranquil little sea of digestive juices. Here, it was met by little broccolis, pepperonis, pieces of pie and hamburgers (buns and tomatoes still attached!) all floating languidly on their backs, some holding tiny little pina coladas!  

My drawing skills have progressed somewhat since that brief foray into medical illustration. In fact, I recently graduated from college at the age of 45. Now in possession of a BA in art from Hartwick College, I can finally call myself a "professional artist!" I still love drawing just as much as I did when I was a child. I think now though, my subject matter is just a little more believable.  

A little about the adult me:   I live in upstate New York with my husband and children. We live on a real, working dairy farm, one that has been in my husband's family since 1856. A lot of my artwork reflects the life that we live here. One thing that I have read over and over is that to succeed as an artist you should concentrate on what you know. Well, after living here for the past 25 years, I really, really know cows. I also know farmers. And tractors, and sheep, and goats, and pigs. You get the picture. Consequently, much of my work is directly influenced and inspired by farm life. I am also a big advocate of preserving family farms. Ours is considered small, about 100 milking cows maximum. In this day of ridiculously large factory farms, I think people are comforted to know that farms still exist where the cows actually go outside to graze on real grass; where children still go fishing in ponds and creeks while cows rest in the shade of willow trees nearby; and where chickens actually roam around the farm yard eating insects and giving themselves dust baths in the garden. I would love to be able to bring that reality to more people through my art.