I started painting in my little apartment in NYC around the same time I began teaching myself guitar and writing songs. I had received a BFA in acting at Carnegie Mellon but realized that if I was waiting for an acting job to allow myself to be creative, I would lose my mind. So, one night, I pounded a nail into the wall, hung a blank canvas on it and began playing with shapes and colors and feelings.

At first, all I wanted to paint was my own mother and grandmother from little black and white photos from the 1920’s and 40’s. I was obsessed with them both. My grandmother had passed years before and it was my way of finding her again and knowing her more deeply. My mom was so wild and precocious as a little one. I found this insight into her free spirit, before her own silencing and going into agreement with the patriarchy of her times, sort of intoxicating. I wanted to know that part of her. So I painted—- all the moments I found in the old albums -gardens of laughter, hand made flapper dresses blowing in the wind, poses beside the old Model T Ford with my grandfather who had died when my mom was nine, my mom in the little Anne Frank outfit and her communion dress and veil-being an absolute rebel with her silly faces and joy.

I didn’t realize it at the time but the one who was coming through in both the songs and the art——was Mother. Divine, holy and hidden from history. I didn’t know I was searching for her… but the deeper parts of me were seeking to know Her and receive Her through the beautiful, human and divine women I came from. The art and music became my way back in to Her arms, Her teachings and Her love. And even though I was not fully conscious of all that, I was absolutely devoted to the mystery of it.

Between acting jobs, I worked as Maître D’ at Ernies, a restaurant on the upper west side. The manager saw pictures of my paintings and offered to hang them in the restaurant. This felt huge and thrilling. A few regulars bought paintings but what was the most rewarding was how my fellow workers responded. Yale and Juliard trained actors and dancers were all suddenly commissioning me to paint for them. They would work their butts off all night waiting tables and then give me their tip money to pay for the paintings. I am still so grateful for how they saw something in my first efforts and no doubt helped me keep on through the inevitable and sometimes excruciating necessity of growing a craft.

I talked my way into an already over-full painting class at the Art Students League. Our kind and generous teacher was Mary Beth McKenzie, American Realist and master of figurative painting. I knew nothing about the craft and it took so much courage and ego vulnerability to show up amongst those incredibly gifted students and paint bad paintings. But like everything, it got easier.

I suddenly decided to move to Los Angeles. I fell in love with and married my guitar teacher. One day I was looking at a Fine Art Magazine and saw an ad for a Gallery in Nashville, where my new husband and I were planning to move and I thought, “What if I could be represented by a beautiful, legit gallery like this?” I swam in the deliciousness of that feeling even though practically the odds would be stacked against this. A few years and a lot more training later I would be represented by that very gallery as well as others equally lovely and legit. So the lesson for me is to imagine it, always-no matter the facts- while also grow your craft as much as you can.

Nashville is where I found my true teachers and mentors. I cannot begin to find words to describe their level of dedication to their students, to the craft of painting and to just being the best kind of generous souls you could ever know.

I studied with Pat and Jody Thompson while working part time in their Gallery, South Gate Studio. I took classes and workshops with Anne Blair Brown, Pam Padgett, Paula Frizbe, Peggy Kroll Roberts, Kim English, Scott Burdick, Susan Lyon and Seth Haverkamp. Dawn Whitelaw was the first artist I approached when we arrived in Nashville and she has been my greatest mentor and dear friend for the past 20 years. We now have art studios together at On Track Studios-opened and operated by artist and friend, Brenda Coldwell.

I am a Signature member of the American Impressionist Society and have won multiple awards in various juried exhibitions, including the American Impressionist Society National Show, Women Painters of the Southwest, National Oil and Acrylic Painters Society as well as the Nashville Arts and Flowers show.

And I am still painting Her love stories, singing them and becoming them to the best of my ability.