My research and artistic work explore cultural constructs around gender and mothering, ability, and schooling. Drawing from autobiography, I locate the essence of an experience and then distill my understanding of that experience into simplified, often geometric, forms. This process helps deconstruct cultural paradigms that complicate interpretation and meaning—ultimately how we perceive ourselves.

Working in the studio involves a form of meditation and contemplative translation of experiences and anxieties through the direct process of applying paint or fabric to various surfaces such as glass, panel, linen, or paper. Non-objective abstraction allows an ambient space for the ambiguities of memory and the tumult of emotion to be freely realized. Often working in multiples, I process experiences in singular works and then rejoin the simplified forms to make a complex, yet fleeting whole. My hope is to claim control over the ambiguities of experience and emotion, if even for a moment.

I am an artist, mother, and associate professor of art at The University of Montana. Before shifting to higher education, I taught K12 in Washington State public schools for fifteen years. My visual work has been exhibited at The Missoula Art Museum, Holter Museum of Art, The Paris Gibson Museum of Art, the Gift Shop exhibition space at The Henry Art Gallery in Seattle, and The Washington State Center for Performing Arts. I’m invested in teacher education programs that integrate community arts and social theory. My educational work has been featured in The Journal of Social Theory in Art Education, The Journal of the Motherhood Initiative for Research and Community Involvement, The Journal of Cultural Research in Art Education, and Visual Arts Research.

I’ve lectured for The National Art Education Association in New York, Chicago, San Diego, Dallas/Fort Worth and New Orleans. Internationally I lectured on mothering and art education in Florence, Italy for The Motherhood Initiative on Research and Community Involvement.

I received an MiT from The Evergreen State College, an MFA from The Vermont College of Fine Arts, and a BA from The Evergreen State College. I also studied at Pontifical Xavierian University in Bogota, Colombia. I currently live in Montana with my family.