As a child, I found refuge in my grandfather’s storytelling and the wonder of my imagination. My passionate involvement with fine art began as a teenager, when I discovered the art museums of my native New York City.
At first, I studied art in New York, but did most of my undergraduate work at the University of California, Berkeley, at the peak of the Bay Area Figurative movement. My own artmaking was generated within this figurative tradition. I studied drawing with RB Kitaj, visiting professor from London, and ceramics with Ron Nagle and Peter Voulkos.

The apparent cultural fusion of my imagery could be attributed to the affinity that I feel for a diversity of art traditions. Over my lifetime many art streams have been absorbed into my vision. Although fascinated by ancient ruins and Italian Renaissance painting, in which I immersed myself during visits to Italy, my main influences are modern and contemporary. I am pulled by the symbolic, psychological presence of surrealism, the passion and intensity of German Expressionism, the darkness and joy of Mexican painting, and the spirit and rawness of primitive, especially African, art.

Whether working with clay or on canvas, my approach is from a painter’s
perspective. I love clay’s sensual, responsive nature and the opportunity it provides to expand my vision into three dimensions. My clay sculpture responded literally to the Bay Area Figurative emphasis on bodies in connection with nature. My torsos, heads, arms, and feet sprouted wings, flowers, cactii and roots. Clay was my main medium for twenty years, before I returned to painting and found that sculpting had impacted my painting, giving it more substance.

Usually working in series, I intuitively follow an unfolding inner dialogue while birthing an idea. I proceed, sometimes slowly with deep concentration, or intensely, riding an eruption of primordial creative energy, like a rapid river flowing through me. In my paintings, I aim for an emotive, vital quality that is startling and strong, to reflect my process in these turbulent times of dire beauty and environmental urgency.

When I work with a reoccurring image- like the ribcage or roses, for example- I
choose them for what they are, for their visual presence, and equally for what they symbolize. I select the ribcage for its butterfly-like shape, and its function as a cage for the heart. Simultaneously, it symbolizes our essence, the bare bones, as well as what remains behind. With a sense of drama, as well as humor, I play with the abstract shapes of the bones and the striped pattern they form. The currents and processes that run through my work explore themes of identity, metamorphosis and transformation.

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