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I am a life-long Wisconsin resident. I grew up in a family that valued education, nature, do-it-yourselfing, and skiing. As children my parents gave us all the raw material we could ever want - paper, crayons, paint, fabric, yarns, and wood - but not a single coloring book! You could find us outdoors year round. We went birding before breakfast, collected insects, canoed, and camped. I loved
nature and couldn’t resist collecting rocks, feathers, dried leaves, butterflies and insects. Along with nature, my childhood revolved around two main things: skiing and art. I was four years old when I started skiing, and my Saturday morning art lessons began just two years later. My beloved art teacher, Jane Doud, noticed my affinity for bringing nature onto my canvas - reflecting to me in my adult years: “No matter what project I gave the class, you always drew birds!” Despite my love of art, I planned to major in biology when I left for college at UW-Madison, because I was a strong biology and math student. As fate would have it, the road ahead brought me back to my creative roots: a bachelor’s degree in psychology, and then a master’s degree in textiles and design. The day after graduate school ended, I was invited to teach in the Related Art Department, where I taught for several years. Then, after a few detours and feeling confined by the straight lines of weaving, I decided to follow my dream of becoming the next John James Audubon. Just think - a chance to be outdoors and to paint birds! I returned to UW-Madison for a graduate program in studio art. I emphasized printmaking, but now under the mentorship of Prof. John Wilde my bird drawings came to life again. My first exhibit of bird drawings was held following my MFA show in 1981. The next year two of my drawings were juried into the highly competitive Birds in Art show at Wausau’s Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum. After a birding trip to Kenya, I drifted into watercolors of animals. I am now a signature member of the Society of Animal Artists and mainly work in watercolors. To this day, I consider myself a lover of our wonderful natural world. I use my artwork to capture the spirit of what I see. And I still love to ski - but now I let my Labrador Retrievers do all of the heavy athletic work in the fields, where we train and run trials. |
Memberships Society of Animal Artists, Distinguished Signature Member Wisconsin Visual Artists, Professional member Madison Watercolor Society Selected Juried Exhibitions Birds in Art, Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum, 7 times Society of Animal Artists Annual Show (Award of Excellence 2017), 15 times Watercolor Wisconsin, Racine Art Museum, 19 times Art and the Animal, Bennington Center for the Arts, 10 times Wildlife Wisconsin Biennial, 14 times Splash: The Best of Watercolor, 4 times Collections Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum Racine Art Museum Miller Art Center UW Hospital and Clinics WI State Historical Society’s Museum on the Square Private collections nationally |
