In order to understand my art, you need to know a bit about me. It will explain why my art is so eclectic. I make sculptures. I am not a potter. Some of my work is functional and some is decorative. Some is very colorful and some is just hues of color. In order to get behind the scenes, so to speak, I will show, in chronological order, how my art developed.

Anchorage, Alaska is where I started out on this journey called life. There were wide, open spaces because it was a frontier and not even a state at the time of my beginnings. My parents were pioneers in the sense of liking adventure and not needing all of the necessities of life that some people do. I grew up very self-reliant and independent in a log cabin that my parents built.

I lived in the suburbs of New York City on Long Island for all of my elementary school years. The urban community where I lived was as much of an adventure as the Alaskan wildness. Space was changed but in a neutral way for me. People were there instead of the wilderness but it all could be seen in the way that the environment can be seen – to be interacted with or not. My independence was taking on a new dimension.

There was a definite duality to my life during my elementary school years because I spent the summers at Wingaersheek Beach in Massachusetts. It was a private beach and there were no agendas at all. I could climb on the rocks when the tide went out for a mile, dig for clams in the low tides, or pick blueberries that would be added to pancakes or muffins by my mother. I had different friends than the school year friends and all of the freedom in the world to just walk on the beach or go in my friends' small boats up and down the coast. Many wonderful memories were woven into my life at this time.

I went to junior high school in the Washington, DC area where the Capitol was an easy bus ride away. The huge variety of people, cultures, life styles, cuisines, fashions, languages, etc. made a huge impact on me in my adolescence. What was normal before was redefined, making the boundaries extend into many areas of tolerance. I was among people who made my world look like a kaleidoscope, very changeable and varied.

Living in Beirut, Lebanon and going to an international private high school in the Middle East meant that I missed out on the Americana of Homecoming dances, football games, drive-in social meetings and such. Instead, I traveled to places that widened my view of life – the people, the cultures, the histories, the languages, etc. My social crowd was very international and varied a lot because of the fluid movement of the people, moving from country to country. People usually spoke many languages in order to communicate. Cultures blended together as an international smorgasbord. I didn't have to fit into any of the pieces and could be as independent as I wanted to be, not needing to identify with any one group. This made it possible to not be critical of any group, also. I didn't have to be an insider or an outsider. I could just be me.

I ended up in Iowa as a result of not knowing where to go to college. I didn't have any affiliation, so I started off going to my mother's college in the Midwest. It was a shock to me to find out that there were people who had never, ever gone more than 20 miles from their homes all of their lives and they were my age. They couldn't understand who I was or what I had experienced. I felt like a foreigner in my own country. I didn't dislike them but we couldn't understand each other.

I transferred to the University of Washington in the Pacific Northwest which was very new territory for me, having lived on the East coast only. The rugged outdoorman of the general population appealed to me but the gloomy weather made it so that natural light was dim and weak.

Then I went to live in southern Honshu, Japan for a couple of years. I rode my bicycle around the small fishing village and took trains to various cities. I went on many excursions but mostly stayed near home, learning flower arrangement, cooking, and painting. The people were so impressive to me: being able to be hard workers wearing Western style clothes during the day and then come home to wear their kimonos and write poetry or watch the koi fish swim in the tiny ponds in their yards. Plants were seen as ornamental, to be modified from the natural order. I was happily independent here, being different in a very non-American way.

I came back to Seattle to finish my degree at UW in Psychology, with an emphasis in counseling. I was working in the mental health field at Harborview Medical Center, doing what I had been learning and enjoying it. It would have lasted a lot longer if I wasn't called to the East coast because of family issues that I needed to help out with. After returning from the East coast, I realized that I didn't fit into the Pacific Northwest, mostly because of the weather.

So, I went south to Chico, in the Sacramento valley of northern California, where many rivers flowed out of the Sierras and the ground was either 80 feet of loam or boulders. The weather had huge contrasts being either like an oven in the summer or cold in the winter. There was a lot of natural beauty and it was here that I started taking a ceramics class at a local recreation center.

But wanderlust hit me. I traveled into Mexico and got down as far as Guadalajara before realizing that it would be better to know some Spanish. There was a bi-cultural institute there that taught English as a foreign language and Spanish to foreigners. I ended up living and teaching English there for a couple of years. There were many artists there who I got to know very well and their work, especially the ceramists, had a tremendous influence on me. One of the expatriates I knew, decorated his whole house with tiles that were glazed from melted beer bottle glass. And whole windows were made from the glass bottles melted together side-by-side to make wonderful colors when the sun shone through them. The variety and unconventional manner of life really appealed to me.

I made it just over the border into California to take art classes at San Diego State University. They weren't for another degree but for my longing to create. After my art courses, I moved to northern California for a while. However, the job market dictated my next decision. I became a 5th pathway student back in San Diego in order to obtain my Teaching Credential. I barely finished the student teaching portion before leaving Southern California.

I moved to Colorado and had to take several more courses in order to get my license to teach in Colorado since very few states have reciprocity. I ended up teaching in the least desirable schools because I made a choice to not discriminate between the students who were seen as less good because of all their troubles. It was very enlightening to learn the whole story, not just see the students' behavior or performance. This is when I realized the importance of athletics and art when students were not being successful in academia.  Again, there was no clear right and wrong but  it was how you saw things that was important.

I came back to California, Santa Rosa. The sunshine and beaches were replaced by the rugged coastline and the massive Redwoods with apple orchards, cows and vineyards everywhere. Immediately, I started taking ceramics classes at night at Santa Rosa Junior College after working as a teacher during the day. There were a huge variety of instructors that meant that there were many, many different styles and approaches being taught, which I absorbed. I took so many courses that I was banned from enrolling any longer since I was seen as taking away the space in the classroom that the enrolled students should have instead of me. So, I took off on my own, going to Pottery Studios in Recreation Centers. I cannot make my own glazes or load the kilns but I have free use of the studios during the time when they are open. 

By including drawing and painting, I meld the art of ceramics into a multi-dimensional one, where I draw or paint on the clay either before or after it is fired. My work is as varied as my background. Anything goes. Thus, my style is eclectic which is very obvious as soon as people step into My Gallery, which is behind my home. It is open to the public but on an invitational basis since I have to be home. I have a lot of work in my garden that is slowly returning to its original state – earth. And so goes life: births and deaths of everything, everywhere. There is nothing static in the universe, which includes my life, that's for sure.

Hope you enjoy my art.