As an artist and sometimes author of books and short stories and poetry, I see my process as an effort to tell a story, if even an experience saved.
Early Education
Early on, I knew I was an artist. One of my first major decisions was the choice to eschew a private school in favor of a vocational school.
McGavock Senior High School, in Nashville, Tennessee, was a considerable journey away from my hometown, but the effort was well worth the challenges because Ms. Lillian B. Sunstead was there. Over two years, I learned color theory, fine art, commercial art, theater, printing, and welding. In her class, students prepared portfolios; Ms. Sunstead personally drove us to Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, Tennessee, to apply for enrollment. Soon I was awarded a full four year all expenses paid scholarship to the University.
My personal life was challenged by parental disapproval of my choice to engage in art as a lifestyle and career. I was, by anyone's standards, homeless because of the decision I made. As a child, this decision did not end my career as an artist but fueled it. I did not go on to Austin Peay State University, but I promised myself that I would indeed go to University and accomplish every goal I have in art and life.
Work and Family
I began working as a commercial artist with the same portfolio that helped me win a scholarship. The employers saw my ability, but I knew I had more to say than what work for hire allowed. I worked at home, at night, on paintings. Soon my only son was born, and I had my first real-life model who fueled me, even more, to accomplish my goals because now they included him. I painted every night after 9:00 PM; this was my time alone. I had a small following who bought my work.
California / Mentors / Stephen Prina, Jeremy Gilbert-Roth, Mike Kelly, and Uta Barth
Over the next 10 years, I progressed into the role of Creative Director for Thomas Nelson Publishing and finally earned enough to save and plot an exit from my career into U University. I had learned about the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena and set my path there. I flew to California, found a part-time job in an ad agency, enrolled at night school for one semester, and applied for a scholarship and full-time enrollment at Art Center.
My mentors Stephen Prina, Jeremy Gilbert-Roth, Mike Kelly, and Uta Barth changed my life; they opened my mind to the reason, the essence of art. During this time, I embraced the history of art and understood more about the history of women in the visual arts. I had never questioned my role as a woman or contemplated that there would be any challenges at all, perhaps because to create visual art requires one to be in a mental space of real-time thought. It could not have been a grander education or experience. I graduated in 1990, earning my BFA with Distinction from Art Center College of Design.
MFA
The following semester I began at California Institute of the Arts, Valencia, California, and committed to earning my Master's degree in Fine Arts. This time was extraordinarily challenging and rewarding. I met weekly with Connie Hatch and focused on my thesis show. I experimented with color saturation creating whole rooms of yellow jelly beans, for example. But ultimately, I still wondered about the history of women; what was missing?
My thesis, Illustrated History of Women, was comprised of billboard-sized digitally printed canvases of alternate history. I morphed images of myself onto artifacts and imagery to create the President of the United States, a picture of a business-suited professional woman behind the desk in the Oval Office. Another canvas portraited a Woman on the Moon or Hypatia in the Library of Alexandria.
All works were created with photos and photoshop before the school had yet embraced digital art or computers. My thesis artwork exhibit, created on the computer and printed on canvas fabric by a billboard manufacturer, hung for a week in the school Gallery Two. I was awarded my MFA in 1993.
Current Work
I am currently experimenting with water-based oil paints and silverpoint as I explore the minimal use of paint to express the light, color, and messages of each day. At the same time, I create digital studies through 3D modeling that manifest mythical creatures in wire-framed landscapes. While the two working methods seem worlds apart, technically, historically, they are on the same canvas. Less
