The Search for Home: Roots, Strings, and Abstracted Forms

For the first two decades of my career, my work was a conversation with architecture. Throughout my Master of Fine Arts program at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, (2001-2004) I wrestled with big questions of belonging: Where is my place? What is my home? My purpose? To explore this, I painted imagined structures—buildings that felt lightly tethered to the earth and transient, a reflection of my own anxious and searching heart.  My faith was being tested and my heart was not at rest.  This work speaks to time spent in the sometimes dangerous past time of deep thought.  

During this time, another love affair began—this one with the city of Paris. Post-graduate study allowed me a long look at the gleaming stones of Paris’ streets and buildings.  I created a vocabulary of structures and examined them by painting the city in an endless array of lights and contours.  My Paintings of Paris series was born then, an ongoing body of work capturing a city that felt both timeless and full of possibility. It was a beautiful counterpoint to my more abstract internal explorations.

A Turn Toward the Heart: Finding Stories in the Everyday

Life has a way of clarifying what’s truly important, and for me, that clarification was profound. My professional life and personal world were completely reshaped by a series of life-altering events. A diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis brought my body's fragility into sharp focus, while at the same time, I fell deeply in love and we started a family. Through it all, my faith became supercharged, providing not just comfort, but a powerful new direction.

This profound shift in perspective gave birth to my Serving the Spirit series. Through these paintings, I explored how my prayer life and study of sacred scripture were deepening my understanding of my new vocation as both a mother and an artist. The abstract questions of 'belonging' found beautiful, concrete answers in my family and faith.

My focus turned away from imagined structures and toward the tangible, intimate objects that hold the stories of our lives. My current body of work explores the intimacy of memory and relationships. I paint objects that carry the imprint of those I’ve lost—mementos imbued with their spirit and story. Consolation Flowers is a series of observational oil paintings of floral arrangements from the funerals of my loved ones. In this body of work, I commune with my loved ones through the thick impasto surface which serves as conversation space. Each painting becomes an opportunity to honor their memory through the image of flowers. I view the paintings not as symbols of grief, but as vibrant testaments to love and resilience.