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As an artist, I love the kinesthetic aspect of drawing and painting... the feel of the medium on my hands, the texture the paint creates on the canvas, the weight of the piece when it's finished and framed. I love playing with light and shadow, positive and negative space, creating the illusion of movement.

I have been an artist ever since I can remember. As a child, I constantly amused myself with any manner of creative projects: drawing, sewing, knitting, crocheting, learning to play musical instruments, and making dolls and puppets. The compulsion to create stayed with me as an adult, and I naturally gravitated toward a career in graphic design. I earned my visual communications degree at Brookhaven College, and was fortunate to have Dr. Donna Adams as a teacher in my second semester there. Dr. Adams showed me how to find the essence of the image by breaking it down into simple shapes, and encouraged bold explosions of color and dramatic lighting. Another very influential instructor was Jerry Hill, who brought home the importance of design restraint by requiring that all assignments be done by hand - no computers allowed. It made me think about whether I really wanted that extra element on the page, for if it proved to be "too much", there would be no choice but to start over! I also had the pleasure of being on the newspaper staff at Brookhaven for three years, as cartoonist. My hobby of collecting bunny figurines inspired the "Rabbitz" comic strip.

I've been a designer for 14 years now, creating everything from stationery and business cards, to advertisements, to web sites, to vehicle wraps. My favorite art medium is oil bars, because of their creaminess and vibrancy. They can be laid on thickly for texture, or used with turpenoid for thin layers of color. Oil pastel, ink, and watercolor pencil are other media I like to use.