I am a textile artist, and most of my works are large fabric collage landscapes. They are sewn together like quilts, but are intended to be hung on walls, as they are made of a wide variety of shiny, metallic and fragile fabrics, and are frequently embellished with beads, buttons, and yarns. The technique is raw-edge appliqué, and most of the sewing is freehand machine quilting. All of my work has a three dimensional element, with surprising little things popping off the surface here and there. I like to keep it playful.

 My work is primarily representational, inspired by the scenes I drive and bicycle through in rural Mendocino County, where I have lived all of my adult life. All of my designs are original, and every piece is one-of-a-kind. I work from my memory of a particular scene, augmented with photographs I take myself. I usually include two perspectives of the same scene in each piece… the distant view in the background, framed by highly detailed and greatly enlarged plants/flowers/fencelines spilling over the foreground border area. I'm also drawn to movement, which is so much a part of everything we see and do in our lives. To try to achieve a sense of movement in my pieces I cut everything freehand and allow the pieces to buckle, twist and fold as I machine appliqué them onto the layers below. I work fast as a means of achieving a more dynamic outcome, letting my energy show in the work.

 Though I complete most of my work alone in my studio before I am ready to show or sell it, I am also happy to do commission pieces. I enjoy the process of trying to understand how another person reacts emotionally to a favorite place of theirs, and I am more than willing to go there, take pictures, and listen well enough to internalize the focus of the buyer. I gladly accept suggestions for color, content, and even materials…but, once I get started on the piece, the artistic process must remain mine.

 My work has been shown both locally and nationally. Two pieces are currently in nationwide traveling shows, having won ribbons in national competitions, and several others have been juried into shows across the country. Many of my pieces have won blue ribbons in local shows in Mendocino County, and I have recently finished a commission from Fetzer Winery to do a large quilt, which is currently on display in their Hopland headquarters. My work has been published in a number of books and magazines, both in the US and abroad. I am co-creator of the "Quilt of Compassion," which was made in the aftermath of September 11, and is on world tour for the next three years.

 I am employed as an Orientation and Mobility Instructor in northern California, where I have worked for the past 30 years teaching blind people how to get around with a white cane. Maybe it is this all-day focus on lack of sight that makes the world such a visual treat for me. Other passions are traveling, kayaking, mountain biking, backpacking and organic gardening… all outdoors and energetic. That balances the solitary, sedentary quilting and writing which keep me sitting indoors for hours at a stretch.

 I was an art history major at UC Berkeley, with a minor in art, and I have a Masters in Education from CA State University-San Francisco. I am mostly a self-taught quilter, though I have studied briefly under Natasha Kempers-Kullen at a workshop at Asilomar. I have recently begun teaching art collage quilting, and am holding classes across northern California.