I grew up in the West, both in Wyoming and Colorado. My father worked as a chemist for an oil company, but his heart was in the arts. He made jewelry from cut stones, fabricated small rock sculptures, and collected western paintings and sculptures. My mother was also a creative, a painter who spent late nights at the kitchen table painting landscapes and flowers. Both of my parents introduced me to the arts and to the immense satisfaction of immersing oneself in a creative project. While my main interest is in figurative work and portraiture, the expansive western landscape and my artistic upbringing has greatly influenced my work.

I'm a self-taught painter who now lives in New Orleans with my husband and dog, Taloo. And I have two kids who are off following their own creative pursuits. While I’ve been painting since my early twenties, in the last eight years I began to paint in earnest while raising kids and working. I’m interested in the complexity of the human figure, especially the female figure, and I love the challenge of painting what some artists avoid – faces and hands. I'm influenced by several contemporary painters – the breezy folksiness of Ellen Langford, the bold colors and shapes of Linda Christensen, the luscious brushstrokes of Suchitra Bhosle, and the emotive figures of Jeremy Lipking. And like just about every portrait artist, I never tire of looking at Sargent’s work.

I often move between an impressionistic and graphic style. I enjoy using bold colors while also capturing people in everyday quiet moments - drinking a morning coffee, putting on shoes, digging through a purse. I believe in the importance of recognizing the connectedness of all people, places, and objects in the universe, and feel this philosophy is a guiding force in my work as an artist. I experiment with landscapes, still lifes, and just about any subject matter, including old cars, giving these places and objects their own human-ness, their connectedness to the broader picture and to the viewer. In August 2019, I was part of my first group exhibit “Rowes and Rose” during New Orleans’ White Linen night.