I was very fortunate to grow up surrounded by art. Both my parents were artists and they encouraged me to express myself through art-making. When I was a little girl in the 1960’s their studios were my mecca where I discovered paint and thick watercolor paper to paint on.
My parents also took me to art museums in Boston and New York. On these enjoyable trips we wandered around in often empty galleries, discovering the artwork of Mark Rothko, Louise Nevelson, and De Kooning, among many others. I was particularly drawn to the Abstract Expressionists.
In the mid-70’s I studied art in college which took me to New York City. There I discovered artists who were stretching the boundaries of what art was. The women of the Feminist Art Movement took traditional “domestic arts”, such as fiber and craft, and brought it to a new place by making large works and installations. I was drawn to artists who used their subjective experiences and personal stories as material for their art, since I always believed in the power of art to communicate, transform, and heal.
Later on I further explored the transformative power of art while receiving graduate training in Art Therapy and Clinical Psychology. I then spent the next 40 years working as a psychotherapist and creative art therapist. Throughout my working life I continued making art.
Now that I’m retired I live in the woods of Western Massachusetts and devote much of my daily life to art-making. I give my creative process the space it needs and follow it where it leads.
With my art I explore relationships between the body and nature, and between time, personal history, and the cycles of growth and decay. I am inspired by the natural world and use materials found, gathered, and discarded in the environment. Finding value in the discarded is my way of honoring resources in a disposable age.
My art-making process is driven by the material and a desire to explore it and converse with it. At times my creative process evokes a spider spinning a web or a bird gathering twigs and mud for its nest, or my Italian grandfather, a tailor, making his livelihood with needle and thread.
At other times I am reminded of what an anthropologist might feel, digging into the soil to find remnants and artifacts that help connect us to ourselves. It is a process of discovery.
