In all my work there is a whimsy with a dark side. My personal narrative uses innocent childhood imagery like teddy bears, toys, and puppets, to create the reactionary expressions of my inner emotional life.  I was raised by a funky and creative family.  My mother owned and operated a puppet theater where my family spent many weekends developing shows, building puppets and hosting other children's birthday parties.  Art and creativity were a way of life. 

 

For a child nurtured by puppets and their puppeteers, my affinity for the anthropomorphic was fashioned to help me cope and accept the divorce and divide of my family.

In college, I studied interior design and color theory. As a sideline I attended workshops and received private training in painted trompe l'oeil, faux finish, and decorative wall treatments. This educational background influences all of my art making.

 

I select materials based on their authenticity to my process. I choose clay because of its fragility, its relationship to the earth, and its tradition in arts and craft. I incorporate recycled materials such as wood and found objects because of their nostalgia and reference to aging, decay and decomposition. Encaustic wax and resins speak to my faux finish experience and love of historic art materials. 

Combining assemblage with ceramics fills my current body of work.  Trompe l'oeil “fool-the-eye” sculptures are made of high-fired ceramic clay, oxide washes, encaustic paint and found objects. Their homespun construction and textured surfaces simulate threadbare fabric, tattered fur, and the broken button eyes of careworn, faded toys and carnival games. 

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Selected Solo Exhibition 

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The Don B. Huntley Gallery, Through the Toyshop and Behind the Curtain, Pomona, CA, 2020              Gallery 825, Solo Exhibit, Midway, Los Angeles, CA, 2017
 

Selected Group shows:

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The Kellogg Art Gallery, Ink/Clay 44, Pomona, CA., Juror, Susan Elizalde-Henson            

Gallery 825, VS Exhibition, Los Angeles, CA, LAAA with artist Courtney Rackley                 

Dab Art, installation: Under The Big Top, for Latent Ability -Yessíca Torres, Director, Ventura, CA                  

The Loft, Hard Mud Soft Threads, installation Ceramic Circus, Los Angeles, CA Juror- Carolyn LaLiberte            

Blue Roof Studios, Let Me Eat Cake, Too, Los Angeles, CA -Kristine Schomaker              

Burbank Creative Arts Center, PSA 94th Juried Exhibition, juror, Mr. Jay Belloli                

The Kellogg Art Gallery, Ink/Clay 43, Pomona, CA., juror Joan Takayama-Ogawa                        
The Irvine Fine Arts Center, ALL MEDIA 2018, Irvine CA, juror Dave Barton

The Kellogg Art Gallery, Ink/Clay 42, Pomona, CA., juror Joan Takayama-Ogawa
El Camino College Art Gallery, Mother and Child, Torrance, CA, curated by Susanna Meiers

SMC: SOLA Gallery, Fresh 2017, Los Angeles, CA, juror Fatemeh Burnes, Peter Frank

Orange County Center for Contemporary Art Gallery, Art As Protest, Santa Ana, CA, juror Tyler Stallings

Gallery 825 LAAA'S 2017 Benefit Auction, Los Angeles, CA

CA 101 - It Takes A Village, Redondo Beach CA, juror Nina Zak Laddon 

Gallery 825, Multiple Feeds, Los Angeles, CA

White’s Gallery, Pasadena Society of Artists 92 Annual, Montrose CA, juror Toby Tannenbaum

El Camino College Art Gallery, Personal Matters, Torrance, CA, curated by Susanna Meiers

The Loft, South Bay Contemporary, Dear President, San Pedro, CA, curated by Peggy Zask