This website gives an overview of my work and will include more recent work in the near future. Until then, please enjoy some of my past projects.

The studio practice is very important to me, and similar to a scientific lab, my studio provides a place for focused experimentation. My studio is not as messy as Francis Bacon's, not as clean as Modrian's, but is nonetheless an essential component to my creative process--however slow or fruitful it may be at any given time. I strive to consolidate my ideas and process in order to communicate my experience of seeing and creating. Ideally, I would like the viewer to gain some sense of my involvement in both the craft and the meaning of the work.

Samples of my work from 1997-2002 can be found in the archives section of my portfolio. In college, I was fortunate enough to spend a year in Rome, Italy. Aptly named, the 'Eternal City', the urban fabric was inspiring and overwhelming. I learned to filter visual information and discover images that appealed to me both visually and conceptually. My sketch books from that year, and subsequent trips back to Rome, are a constant source of inspiration.

Painting has always been a way to transition myself into a new body of work; and it often pushes me to explore more three dimensional work. In graduate school at Portland State University, I began to make paintings of 1950's interiors. I experimented with rearranging the paintings after they were completed. I cut them up and fashioned them back together until they became pattern and color, but retained some of the nostalgia of the time period. My desire to physically participate in the interior space and the fantasy reality of the 1950's lead me to immerse myself in the craft of cake decoration.

Cakes were the most highly promoted food icon of the 1950's. They were icons of femininity that evoked a powerful fear of failure in women according to studies done by General Mills at the time. The cake decorating manuals I had collected claimed that not only was a cake a work of art, but the decorators self-esteem and social standing was riding on the skilled creation and presentation of the cake. In the tradition of artists like Miriam Schapiro and Harmony Hammond, I resurrected a traditionally feminine craft to create wall works and free-standing sculpture that explored the ideas of perfection, failure, and the overtly decorative that culminated in the exhibition "You Can Do it Too."

I am continuing to explore the space between painting and sculpture, and deal with feminine topics in overt, subtle, and humorous ways. I believe in an art world that Lucy Lippard envisioned-- "a world where fine arts combine with "craft" and "hobby" arts and develop an art of making."