I  returned to my love of art, after becoming  a nurse. It happened in a humanities class, when I returned to junior college near Chicago, where local artists came in every two weeks to work with us on their particular art form.  After a month, I went and changed my major from business and marketing to art.  Two years later, I went on to get my BA in Art at the University of South Florida in Tampa.  I could say "I should have gone to art school right out of high school', but life goes in the direction it is meant to and I went along with it.  Since that decision to merge back onto my creative path I have never looked back. 

In college, I studied itaglio printmaking and worked in clay. I also took beginning sculpture.  It was the printmaking and clay work that informed my current style.  After graduating from college, I became a self-taught painter and incorporated the techniques of layering texture and color in my work.  It is like a revelation when the work unfolds.  I seldom know what will transpire and I most often pleasantly surprised by the transformations that occur up until a work id done.

My work is definitely influenced by my nursing background.  It has left something in my memories, those in my mind and those in these hands that I laid upon people.  It is where I just began to get an awareness,a glimmer of the journey of the spirit, the soul.  It was because of caring for those other souls that I have come to realize how special life is.  Each day, that becomes even clearer and it is very precious thought to carry along with me.

I had a burn-out, a breakdown of spirit, while I was a nurse and beginning artist.  During that time, I used art to heal.  As the years go by, I have witnessed the effect repeated over again in others during art classes, workshops, mentoring, and speaking engagements. Now, as I continue my practice, I see that even the event, though tough, was just the stepping stone to the work I am doing today.

Currently, I am exploring the concepts of loss, finding transformative solutions, and the role of hope on how we heal and regain a sense of wholeness.  The impetus for this work was watching a program over a year ago about soldiers being injured in Afghanistan and Iraq by explosives, coming back with significant loss of limb and more.   I am using found object sculpture and music compositions made from found sound samplings to examine the processes and work through these deep contemplations.  I believe that this has to do with working through "dismemberment" and how to "re-member" pieces of ourselves and re-invent ourselves for health and wellness. 

As a part of my work, I am studying the works of the scientists, artists, musicians, and healthcare professionals on transpersonal psychology, altered states of consciousness, myths, spirituality, theories regarding the dimensionality of space and time, and more.  As I am working through these bigger issues of loss, my own personal ones have been bubbling up into my awareness, so I am using my experienes as fodder for my initial pieces of work.  My work in experimental sound design has been as enjoyable as my visual art work.  In fact, I am trying out "painting" my compositions in the recording software, using my cursor like a brush to lay down where sounds will be on the tracks.  In the near future, I hope to put these compositions out there, somewhere. In the meantime, one of my most recent pieces of sculpture entitled, Precious Debris, can be seen on my Portfolio page.

My hope is to someday work with people who have experienced losses of all kinds and use the arts to help them connect or re-connect with their health, wellness, and well-being, their wholeness.