The first drawings I can remember, I was about 3 or 4 years old. I had come home from visiting my mother during her stay at a psychiatric hospital and my father made a book of our trip in which he wrote out sentences and I drew the pictures. My father was not athletically inclined (nor was I even if he would have been) so that was the beginning of many hours for years to come spent drawing with him.
My interest in painting was always encouraged and I spent several summers at the Usdan Center for Performing and Creative Arts while we lived in New York City. When we moved to Maryland I took private oil painting classes with the Reverend Dr. Jean Pastula, an eccentric woman who replicated works in the Old Masters style. I knew from the age of 15 when I came across a catalogue for The School of Visual Arts that that was where I wanted to be. I enrolled with a partial Scholarship and decided on a Painting Major with a Minor in Art Therapy. My mother passed away on Memorial Day of my Sophomore year and I was financially only able to eke out my Junior Year before I had to stumble and find another direction for my life. I fell into the world of hair color where at once I saw lots of creative possibilities. Hair color is its own artistic never ending journey and I have spent over a decade honing my eyes and my hands in that way in New York City, first at Minardi Salon and currently at Valery Joseph Salon.
When I left college my painting dreams were put on a shelf more or less except for a dabble here or there. Then in 2006 during a class I took in Prosperity Consciousness, the teacher looked at me and asked, "what would you be doing right now if time and money were not a factor?" "Painting!" I blurted out...And so the process began again, slowly at first. It takes courage and trust to stare at a blank canvas. I had been doing work with words in my Junior year at SVA and I instinctively went back to a concept I knew I had more to explore with. What was interesting was once my wheels were greased, the work had grown exponentially since I last used a brush. There had been creative growth going on even when I was not seemingly connected to it. Painting again has been a homecoming unlike anything I could write. I feel as if I have been walking around without a limb for the time I was away...It Is My Source.