I received a Bachelor of Fine Arts with a Teaching Certificate from the University of Utah.  Concurrent while working on my degree I was employed as a graphic designer at SDI, an apparel company in Salt Lake City. This was a great opportunity for me.  I worked on design and illustration assignments for diverse national clients.  I learned graphic design skills outside of my fine art training that I incorporate in my art making today.  

Upon graduation I worked at Tanner Dance / University of Utah teaching visual art to children and adult teachers from Utah Public Schools. I enjoyed teaching art.  Most teachers say they learn more from their students than the students learn from them, which is the case with me.  Working with children will always be an inspiration to me.  I am now pursuing my own projects and body of work as a mixed media artist.

I create collage paintings.  These works are generated from our most basic experiences; unrelated images, sensations, emotions and feelings.  I am particularly interested in exploring the relationship between colors and textures, creating depth and meaning.  I layer forms as fragments of experiences, memory, and dreams.  Within this fractured chaos, the relationship of layers and passages combine to form a single image. 

ARTIST STATEMENT

Our everyday lives are a cacophony of images.  William James, arguably the most distinguished American psychologist, viewed this experience as “a booming, buzzing, blooming” confusion of consciousness.  I am interested in how we process these endless streams of images into a coherent visual whole.  We create layers of images in our  minds, we join the disconnected and connected, old and new, into a holistic experience that becomes our world view.  From this view we interact with others.   

My collages begin like our most basic experience of the world.  That is as unrelated images, sensations, and experiences.  I am particularly interested in exploring the relationships between colors and textures to create a collage with depth of memory and meaning.  I layer forms as fragments of experiences and bits and pieces of dreams.  Within this fractured chaos, what interests me is the relation of these layers; a single image in relation to another.