I have always been an artist. My parents nurtured my passion and interest in art from a very young age. I was born in Roanoke, Virginia, which is nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains. I earned a Bachelor of Science in Studio Art from James Madison University in 1997 with a minor in Art Education. After teaching in local elementary schools in our diverse community of Harrisonburg, VA for many years, I am now painting full time in my studio.
In my work, I play with marks, lines, and shapes, but most notably, color. Mixing each oil color from a limited palette of only primaries along with white and black allows me to understand the relationships between the colors more deeply. My paintings evolve through layers where the colors react to one another by contrasting or blending. I carefully balance hues, saturations, and tones to make soft or bold statements. The intensity and significance of color in work by artists like Helen Frankenthaler, Mark Rothko, and Paul Klee inspire the way I use color to communicate.