I was born in Galveston, Texas, the eldest of 4 daughters.  My earliest memory of doing art was after I received a box of 64 crayons in a box with a sharpener as a gift from my great Grandma Kate.  She was an artist, and I was in awe of her.  I used to draw on the floor of her living room for hours.

A pivotal moment in my artistic life occurred in Mrs. Dructor’s fourth grade class.  In an effort to end school, I hatched a diabolical scheme to make the teacher so fat, she wouldn’t fit through the door.  I called her “Mrs. Tractor” behind her back.  I brought her massive quantities of sweets, and encouraged my fellow students to do the same.  Fortunately, my evil plan never came to fruition, and this allowed Mrs. Dructor to introduce me to ceramics–a legalized version of playing with mud.  I sat still long enough to sculpt a horse’s head out of clay, a feat that amazed everyone.  An added benefit was that the thing could have been used in self-defense as an alternative to pepper spray.

I majored in Art and English at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio.  For some inexplicable reason, I drove across the country in my 1960 Volkswagen bus, and eventually found myself in California.  Blue skies, perfect weather–I was smitten. 

I had another brief fling with clay at Santa Monica College.  I also taught an afternoon ceramics class to kids and seniors in West Los Angeles, though I had no idea what I was doing.

Then in 1980, I moved to San Francisco. I took classes in Graphic Design and built a portfolio.  I worked as a graphic designer in the Bay area and Los Angeles.   I was fortunate to have received many national and international design awards for my work, and eventually started my own design and marketing firm in Venice, California.

It wasn’t until 2005 that I took up ceramics in earnest at Pierce College, first under the tutelage of Brian Peshek, then later with Melody Cooper.  Both professors were instrumental in inspiring my long-lost love of clay, as well as my growth as a person and as an artist.  My work has been part of the Pierce student show every year since 2005, and was included in an exhibition representing Pierce College at the California Conference for the Advancement of Ceramic Art (CCACA) in Davis in 2008-9.