I lived in New York City for ten years, completing my art education. I earned my BFA from Pratt Institute in Drawing and an MFA in Painting from Hunter College, part of the City University of New York. I then earned my Doctorate in Studio Practice from New York University. During my Doctoral study I sought to weave Existential theory into my artistic practice. Also at this time I became acutely aware of the importance of the support to the overall expression. Subsequently, I began making my paper to create the surfaces I needed to generate my imagery. I was seeking a synthesis of materials and imagery that is still present in my work.
About 2008 I had a renewed interest in Renaissance art. Gold leaf became my visual vehicle and reference in the Notes on Paradise series; a meditation and contemplation after my father’s death. It was at this time that I began to understand that my choices in materials and processes resonated with my personal and cultural histories. My maternal great-grandfather was a sculptor in Italy prior to WWII and came to America to escape Mussolini’s persecution of artists. He immigrated to New York City in 1929 with my grandmother, Adele, and her sister Giulia. He became a professor of sculpture at The Cooper Union in New York City. As a child I spent some summers with my family in the town where my grandmother was born and also spent a term of my Doctoral study in Venice, Italy. During these times, I lived with and learned from the art works of masters, including the sculpture of my great-grandfather, found on buildings in their town.
I spent a great deal of time with my grandmother and her sister as a child. They left a imprint on my world and artistic point of view and taught me to live within a macrocosm of mysticism. In my grandmother’s home candlelight flickered across sacred images day and night. This early experience of the power of imagery frames my life and my life’s work. My grandmother and her sister were both seamstresses. Making paper, dyeing and sewing fabrics and fibers in my artistic practice, brings me home.
In the 1990’s I moved to the Pacific Northwest and lived in wilderness areas near Mt. Shasta, California and Mt. Ashland, Oregon for over a decade. I’ve taught studio art and art history at colleges and universities both on the east and west coasts. I received the Faculty Recognition Award at Lane Community College in 2013 and the John and Suanne Roueche/League of Innovation Award for Excellence in Teaching and Leadership in Community Colleges in 2015. I currently live, teach, and continue my studio practice in Eugene, Oregon.
In 2016 I joined a collaboration and shared studio project with photographers Bob Williams and Ed Dasso. This was the start of the Logos Project. The core concept of our collaboration is based upon multidisciplinary improvisational interaction between artists. Some of our collaborations are included on this site. In the summer of 2017 I joined the ArtCity team in partnering with the City of Eugene to use art as a social force.
Recent publications and teaching:
Drawing as Process, drawing text,
Kendall Hunt Publishing, Copyright 2022 (ISBN 9781792479656)
Artspeak: Strategies in Visual Literacy,
Kendall Hunt Publishing, Copyright 2019 (ISBN 9781524990138)
Studio Art and Art History Instructor, Lane Community College, Eugene, OR
Teaching-Artist-in-Residence, Lane Arts Council, Eugene, OR