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928 Orange Avenue Coronado, CA 92118 |
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Artist's Biography |
I love experimenting with color, creating luminous, multi-layered works that welcomes the viewer into a world of magical beauty and feeling. Experimentation fuels my soul and muses my brush.
My vision, the way I see the world, is in constant evolution and so too my paintings continue to evolve. My earlier paintings are infused with the rhythms of soulful music. As I learn more about myself and the human spirit, my newer paintings explore the subtleties of relation. When I paint people, I usually start with the eyes because I feel they are the windows to one’s soul. When I open them on the canvas it’s as if I see the world anew again and it’s my hope that I am helping others to renew their worldviews as well. I love to let my brush guide where the lines should go—free as a child’s hand would be. Every line traces a feeling, every painting tells a story.
Close your eyes and dream of a world without suffering, without war, without the politics of hatred and selfishness. Let the world become light, like clouds beneath color. See the world through the eyes of a child; innocent, colorful, dreamy - then you can follow your dreams true through life. My hope is to touch others with my dreams and my aspirations and inspire them to do the same.
I was born in 1974 amidst the surreal greens of Washington State. One of my earliest memories as a child is of this forest behind my house. There were these earthen paths that wove themselves around giant, moss-covered trees and these rays of sunshine that shimmered shadows and light upon the fern-covered hillsides. It was magical. I loved to run headlong along those paths right into a world of my own making: a place where my childhood dreams met a garden wonderland teeming with prehistoric plants, giant trees, and heard-yet-unseen animals. Nature was this place of mystery and surprises and as I inhaled the air it breathed, listened to the sounds it made, I heard my Self and I felt really alive.
As I was growing up, I dreamed a lot about a world where everything was bright and colorful, like my childhood felt. I thought the world was the most wonderful place I could imagine and I thanked god for being alive. I found myself sketching all the time, drawing to me was seeing things the way they were truly meant to be seen--magical and beautiful--and being able to translate that feeling onto paper. What I saw filled me with life.
When I was 13, I left my Washington childhood behind and moved to upstate New York. The world quickly changed as I bumped up against a colder, unfamiliar environment. Surrounded by farms with horses, green rolling hills, and ice cold winters, I soon learned that the East Coast was still magical, but just in a different way. My teen years were filled with "dream drawing"--capturing and releasing my vision of the world onto paper. This process allowed me to rub up against the world in this profound way and to feel the world rub back. My drawing and illustrating continued on throughout high school where I even managed to get a part-time job as an illustrator for a local newspaper. When I graduated, I took a few college-level drawing and painting classes, but I stopped because I could hear society telling me that I couldn't get a job as a full-time artist. At that time, I listened--not to peaceful whispers of the forests or the colors that sparkled therein, but to the roar of doubt that had crept inside.
When I was 21, I moved to Virginia to escape the harsh winters and to feed my growing desire for travel and exploration. I took a job in sales and quickly found financial success, but I was unsatisfied. Something deep inside of me still yearned to create, to express, and to rediscover the dreamworlds of my childhood. So, I made the decision to listen to the desire within me and began following my lifelong dream. As long as I was able to do what I loved, the money just didn't matter. I dropped everything and went to college at Old Dominion University where I graduated with a fine arts degree in Design with an Emphasis in Painting. I found that as I began to listen, I also began to really see.
It was during my time at Old Dominion that Painting revealed herself to me; showed herself to be the perfect medium for my artistry, for my vision. Painting allows me to touch and share the deepest parts of myself in the truest way. As I explore the world--seeing more and more of what this magical world beholds--my experience grows and so too my vision. I feel blessed to be able to paint for a living and feel privileged beyond words to be able to share my paintings with others.
After successful art shows in Virginia, I made up my mind to become a full-time artist and decided to set out across the country. I journeyed to the enchanted city of San Francisco, but decided San Diego's slower paced, sun-drenched character was much more true to who I was. I have since won national art contests and have been published in magazines. And, whereas my originals have been shown and hung in galleries around the country and collected worldwide, I constantly am seeking--along the inner roads of Self as well as those that cross our lands--to experience different cultures and to gather inspiration to express in my paintings. Current influences in my work include Picasso, Matisse, Dali, Chagall, Van Gogh, Kandinski to name a few, hence the bright colors, dreamy landscapes, and cubist perspectives. I love experimenting with color, creating luminous, multi-layered works that welcomes the viewer into a world of magical beauty and feeling. Experimentation fuels my soul and muses my brush.