Painting and printmaking have offered me aesthetic challenges and opportunities that range from observing and exploring light, color, pattern and texture to creating work that has more complex and personal iconography.

My still life and portrait paintings have autobiographical references. Many include objects and photographs left to me by my family: generations of stuff, left behind, of no value except for the life-long memories they evoke. Family pictures have become part of my still life paintings as portrait "shrines," juxtaposed amid an array of objects that often seem unrelated, but express a personal symbolism. I am fascinated by the remembrance walls that people create in their homes to honor and memorialize their loved ones. Often combined with cherished treasures, keepsakes and collections of objects and artifacts, these shrines are a morbid reminder of our own mortality, and at the same time, provide comfort and connection to who we are and where we came from.

While rendering physical likeness is a key component in painting portraits, capturing a real sense of the person, particularly those closest to me, is equally if not more important.

I have also incorporated portraits and self-portraits as well as family photographs in printmaking for both photo-transfer etchings and for monotypes.

Recently, I have created a series of paintings inspired by the last small working cattle farm, nestled in my suburban Pittsburgh neighborhood. Several years ago, the upper field was filled and seeded and the herd appeared from the valley below to graze. The cattle are now only steps from my backyard. I became mesmerized with how these animals behave: how they sit, stand and move together. Using photographic references, I am painting a growing body of work that, for me, transcends the "cow in landscape" genre with its traditional art historical references and broad archetypes. Instead, I use the field, valley and hills as a backdrop for intimate portraits of specific animals that I have observed, all with a unique physicality and personality. Painting "cow portraits" is a new aspect of my practice.

As a professional artist, I have exhibited paintings in oil, acrylic and pastel and original intaglio and monotype prints in numerous galleries in the Pittsburgh region as well as in statewide and national juried group exhibitions. My work has also been exhibited in juried group shows with Associated Artists of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh Society of Artists, and Pittsburgh Print Group.

I received a Master in Arts in Teaching (1976) and a Bachelor of Fine Arts (1975), both from Rhode Island School of Design in Providence.