The road to becoming a self sustaining professional artist was not a quick process. The key is to be consistent, have a gig in the wings that will support you and allow you to show up for your art. One of my art instructions told me that being a professional artist was “10% inspiration and 90% aspiration. It takes hours in front of the easel and going to the studio even when you don’t feel the energy or the inspiration or the drive.

As a child, I loved art and the art stations we had set up in our classroom, however, even though I loved art, I never believed I was good at it as the art teacher always told me I “painted things the wrong color.” I did not copy what the art teacher told us to do or create, I saw my own vision and painted that. Consequently, I became an elementary school teacher. and after 4 years of teaching, I knew it was not for me, and I decided to pursue a career in the arts. I was torn between fine art and photography, both, which I loved.

After moving to Boston, I was hired as an assistant in a commercial photography studio and studied art at night with Boston artist Lois Tarlow. After many months of doing, and becoming very burned out from the schedule, I stopped the art classes and focused full time on photography.

After 17 years as a successful location photographer, I felt art pull at my heart strings once again. This time, I listened to the calling and left photography to go to art school. I wanted to learn how to paint light on form, so I opted to attend classical ateliers as well as the Academy of Art University in San Francisco.

The training has paid off as light and the movement of light across the picture plane is what I am most known for in my work. Even in my most contemporary works, there is an essence of light coming from within the painting.