I consider myself primarily a landscape painter. As the child of parents who took many road trips with four young children, I learned early on how to tune out the chaos in the car by focusing on the scenery whizzing by. 

 

Working with organic forms -- land, water, structures -- is a meditative process for me. I try to anchor the viewer in the real world while encouraging contemplation of the metaphysical by taking the familiar and giving it a dreamlike, mythic quality. My process often involves building up the surface of a painting with oil ground, creating a sort of topographic map before I lay down any paint.

 

After earning a degree in art history with a minor in studio art from Swarthmore College, I thought I would go on to study art restoration, but the need to pay off student loans intervened. I moved to Boston, embarked on a career in the tech industry, eventually transferred to the Bay Area, and painted intermittently. In the back of my mind, there was always a singular goal: to live by the ocean and paint full-time. And finally, here we are.