Bio

Some of my earliest memories involve making art.  From the time that I attended Saturday classes at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, I knew that art would dictate my path.  I made the conscious decision to share my passion and got an undergraduate degree in Art Education from the University of Vermont.  An additional graduate degree in special education laid the foundation for a lifelong career in public education.  For several years in addition to teaching, I worked as a freelance craftsperson, and I became a juried member of the League of NH Craftsmen. Teaching remains my passion, and I am grateful every day to be inspired by young artists.  Their art work informs my own, and I hope that they would say the same.  Over the past several years, I have begun to build a body of my own work.  Most recently, I have taken classes at the Maine College of Art, Provincetown Arts Association and Museum, and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown.  In the process, I have discovered a tremendous passion for printmaking.  I am especially drawn to the unpredictable nature of monotype and find endless fascination in the capricious transference of images from substrate to paper.

Artist’s Statement

More than any other medium, monotype has unchained my creativity.  Although images can be carefully planned, at the very least, they will emerge from the press reversed.   In addition, many unforeseen results are likely to occur in the printing process.   This has forced me to let go of expectations and has allowed me to become more open in my perceptions of my work.  I have found that there are no irreparable mistakes in monotypes, as long as I am willing to look at unanticipated results with an open mind, adjust my perceptions, then work hard to further enhance the unexpected. Some of my work remains untouched after it passes through the press, but most monotypes are merely the foundation for additional work in drypoint, drawing, painting, or collage.

There are several recurring images in my work. As a result of being the youngest of five sisters, I continue to explore images of dresses. I am also continually drawn to the patterns, colors and forms found in the natural beauty which surrounds me. Letter forms and patterns of script and text spring from my love of the written word. Memory is the thread that ties these sometimes disparate images together. My work often combines past and present, permanence and impermanence, and conscious and subconscious.  In my most successful pieces, the immediately apparent is combined with the barely suggested, and it is my sincere hope that the viewer will come away feeling some connection to my work on either or both of these levels.

The monotype process has allowed me to begin to illustrate my subconscious mind.  This is especially true of my dress series which has been a vehicle for a journey back to my childhood, beginning a dialogue with my past.  This series has been a cathartic way for me to tie together past and present, permanence and impermanence, and conscious and subconscious.  In my most successful pieces, the immediately apparent is combined with the barely suggested, and it is my sincere hope that the viewer will come away feeling some connection to my work on either or both of these levels.