I consider myself to be self–taught, having had less than a year’s formal training at art school (S.U.N.Y. College at Purchase). I began my artistic life as an illustrator and textile designer living and working in New York City. Ten years ago a series of life-altering events caused me to rethink the direction my creativity was taking. I began to do work that would be the beginning of my return to fine art. I started by doing collages and then gradually doing intricate drawings on old slate chalkboards with or without gold leaf. Now I primarily do very detailed, obsessive colored pencil drawings on rice paper, which are cut out, sewn into, and then embedded into vibrantly colored encaustic paintings (pigmented wax and resin painted with the use of a heated palette). I also do intricate silverpoint drawings on gessoed paper.
Both encaustic and silverpoint are very old mediums, very few people are familiar with either, although encaustic painting is enjoying a revival of sorts. I had trouble even finding any of the tools and instructions needed to begin doing silverpoint but I'm very happy that I did. I love the idea of working with tools that are uncommon and difficult to master.
I have shown in many group and solo shows nationally and internationally and have my work in the collections of several museums in the US, the Montclair Art Museum, the Brodsky Center for Innovative Print and Paper, and the Newark Museum among them.
