ABOUT
I grew up in Braintree, a small town on the South Shore of Boston, MA. After earning a B.A. at Bridgewater State College, I followed my mother’s example and started teaching kids in a public school. Unlike her, though, that career was not for me. Next, I worked for several years as a social worker in Boston and Lynn, MA until I moved to Berkeley, CA in 1970. Until then I knew nothing about art. When a friend suggested I take a ceramics class through Berkeley Adult Education program after convincing me that I didn’t need to know anything about art, I took the class.
The first time I made a pot on the kickwheel a part of me woke up. There was something so compelling about the sensual feeling of clay in my hands and the visual record of my actions that I loved. Soon I became aware that I could make something with my hands that might be both beautiful and practical. That profound experience led to my becoming a potter for five years, then to a graduate program in Art at San Francisco State University to learn from Bud McKee, Joe Hawley, David Kuraoka, and Steve Destaebler. From the start of that program, my claywork shifted from pottery to sculpture. For the next twelve years I made large-scale, handbuilt sculptures and small narrative works that explored the human condition.
Also, during those years I taught ceramics at College of Marin, San Francisco State University, SF Academy of Art, and led ceramics workshops. My awards include: California Arts Council grant to teach ceramics at San Quentin prison, Visiting Artist at San Francisco Art Institute, Artpark residency in Lewiston, NY, Marin Arts Council Individual Artist Grant, and a Community Arts Grant from Marin Arts Council for collaboration with teen detainees in the creation of a permanent ceramic wall sculpture for Juvenile Hall, San Rafael.
When my art career was interrupted by a personal crisis in the early nineties, I completed another graduate program and eventually became a licensed psychotherapist, certified in Art Therapy, as well as an EMDR practitioner, with a private practice where I combine my art and therapy skills to guide clients in making art for their own healing. During those years I continued making art when time allowed, shifting to small-scale ceramic sculptures, watercolors, pastels,and oils focused on themes from my inner life or my impressions of external life around me .
After many years of clinical work, on February 28, 2023, I closed my private practice so that I could "make good" on a promise I made to myself to return to making art as my primary work again while I still could. With that in mind I have been gradually increasing my studio time along with occasional exhibits of my art.
In the summer of 2018 I saw an exhibit called "Trees" at Fondacion Cartier in Paris that forever changed my understanding and respect for trees. The exhibit included a video interview with Stefano Mancuso, a plant neurobiologist in Florence, Italy, who described the intelligence of trees and their symbiotic network, how the trees communicate as they grow; sentient beings caring for each other as one in community.
Long walks and hikes in nature revitalize and restore my spirit, along with my daily meditation practice. My eyes and heart are open to the beauty of the amazing variation in trees, their barks, and the shade they provide. In recent years I've been deeply saddened by the increasing size of raging fires in the forests of California and the accompanying toxic, smoke-filled air; only two of the many tragic losses that climate change is bringing to us all. I feel deeply moved to express what I see and feel in the value and beauty of trees, their barks, their roots in the earth, here long before the coming of humans. How might we live more in balance with them and all life on the earth once again?