I was born and raised in Salt Lake City, Utah where I experimented with oil, acrylic and encaustic painting. After my second child was born in 2011, I began to work in collage and was juried into the Utah Arts Festival with this medium in 2012. This was my first big festival I had ever done. Shortly after the festival, we moved from Salt Lake City to Portland to start a new life.

Portland was bursting with beautiful scenery, a vibrant art scene, and friendly new faces. It was shortly after we moved here that I started to explore intuitive painting. It took some time to work up to a style using this process with collage, and in 2014, I was juried into Art in the Pearl. This was the best festival I had ever done. Art in the Pearl led me to representation in galleries, sales, and connections that would last a long time. This was also the first time I realized that the tent I had used for seven years, had a hole in it.

Since my first Art in the Pearl, I have participated in a variety of art shows around Portland including Local 14 and Portland Open Studios. In 2015, I did three festivals, including Salem Art Fair and BAM ArtsFair. I have also been honored to teach three summers at Grace Art Camp, a wonderful program for children ages 4-12.

As my children and I have gotten older, I have begun to focus more on group and solo shows in coffee shops and stores, I did a solo show at Powells last December and I have done numerous group shows in the Portland area. In 2017, I joined the board of directors for Art in the Pearl as Treasurer.  My inspiration comes from the shapes that occur in nature and beyond. I am driven by the colors of landscapes, and the flow of the intuitive process. I do, however, break away from the non-attachment required by intuition when I feel a painting is nearing completion. At this point in the process, I make decisions based on color harmony, and the balance of shapes and ideas within the piece.

As my life and work evolve, I find that my compositions are moving toward patterned tapestries of unrelated shapes and concepts that become connected by delightful areas of neutral curves. Once could say my work is made of happiness and fruit shapes. It’s just something that I have to do, kind of like breathing.