Artist Statement 

I am an Artist and have been a k-8 Art Teacher for 15 years. I have a BFA with a Print-Making Concentration from Rowan University. Print has always been a passion of mine, but the complicated processes and equipment have been challenging to work with while teaching and staring a family.

Drawing became a huge outlet for me for years, but I wanted something more "viewable" or display worthy than a pile of sketchbooks. Mainly my approach to drawing is part improvisation, part visual regurgitation from my day to day life, which I treat as a visual scavenger hunt. If a shape, or color jumps out to me I make a mental note. At the end of the day the good stuff goes in. Repeat as necessary. I also love when I can find a shape on a hike, a certain plant or leaf, and then see it again in a cartoon I'm watching with my son.

This brings me to painting. I was never convinced I could be a good painter, but thinking of a comment from a certain professor at how I "think in layers and would be a good painter", I thought I'd revisit it.

So I did. It was exciting trying to make paintings in the spirit of my mostly Abstract/Non-Objective Sketches. And just overflowing them with colors. But It was slow going. Until Covid happened, and then what else could I do. I started working big and tightening up my techniques and personal visual vocabulary.

These for paintings are a meditation on Summer. They started as an excuse to work in greens so as to shake me out of my routine palette. This summer started and ended with lush greens book-ending a dry brown hazy drought.