Over time, what’s been most important for me has been to find my own voice. And then trust and follow it, even in the face of recurring self-doubt. I think artist voices are like fingerprints, each unique in its own way. That’s why I’m so curious about other’s work: it reveals their experience and worldview.

As the world becomes more complex, I find that visual approaches help me communicate with people of vastly different backgrounds.

As the world becomes more complex, I find that visual approaches help me communicate with people of vastly different backgrounds.

I have a passion for sketching people, especially live human subjects. Aside from community classes in my youth, a couple freshman-level introductory classes in college, and a handful of courses here at CHAW, I’m self-taught and over the years have spent hours upon hours filling sketchbooks. One of my favorite pastimes is taking my sketchbook and pen to a coffee shop to draw fellow patrons, or quickly capturing other commuters’ poses/essences when riding on Metro/bus.

When I arrived at college, escaping West Virginia, yay!, I was an oblivious 17-year-old. I joined a curriculum that was really training, indoctrination, attack therapy, and an artifact of 1930s pedagogy: architecture school.

My first artistic attempts at capturing my children with a camera were not as satisfying as I wanted them to be, so I signed up for photography classes at CHAW. I liked it so much, I returned for more classes and eventually obtained a Master’s in New Media Photojournalism from the Corcoran.

I compare my pieces to political cartoons, but with textiles and buttons rather than pen and paper. Each of my hangings tells a story, describes an experience, or illustrates the double standards of which we are all guilty.

I went home and told my aunts, who were REAL artists. They told me to paint what I wanted AND gave me better brushes.

my paintings are inspired by watercolors themselves – they engulf and permeate each other, they go where they please.