Art has always come naturally to me and I have been doing art in one form or another since childhood. In 1983 I decided to study watercolor specifically and that began a lifelong adventure in painting and a fascination with the peculiar properties of watercolor paint.

In 1989 I went back to school at Georgia State University to study art and received my teaching certificate there in 1991. For the following six years I taught art to children in the public school system, taught art privately to children and adults, and led workshops and classes at museums and art centers. During this period I began showing and selling my work. In 1997 I began painting full-time. Since then I have been exhibiting at an average of 25 shows a year in the Southeast and sometimes farther afield.

Doing my paintings is a rational and emotional experience for me and reflects aspects of life I find beautiful, interesting, humorous, and meaningful. Subject matter is discovered through travel, relationships, dreams, and memories. I paint on location, from my own photographs, and from internal sources. I consider composition and use of color to be technical strengths, and the ability to invoke emotion in the viewer to give my paintings power. Currently I am painting French and Italian landscapes in watercolor, and am working with collage and painting to create Dreamscenes and Chairs.

My watercolors are created on location or from my photographs and memories of actual places I've traveled. I rarely do an underdrawing, but rather paint directly utilizing wet-in-wet and glazing techniques.

My mixed-media pieces are from my imagination and internal life. I jump in by mark or shape making in either paint or collage and work in a conversational manner with the materials until I know the painting is finished.

The two streams of work I am currently doing afford opportunities to indulge many of my passions - travel, reading, looking at and collecting beautiful and unusual objects, furniture, paper and fabrics. The painting process is also very different for the watercolors and mixed-media and I enjoy the difference. One is a response to external elements and the other discerning of inner worlds.