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Artist Bio As part of a military family, frequent moves and constant change shaped my early life. I learned to read people beneath the surface and form connections quickly. Growing up in the desert communities of the American Southwest, at a time when Western films and television were at their peak, the line between reality and imagination blurred early on. What first appeared as emptiness revealed itself as a landscape rich with life. This awareness - that people and things are not always what they seem - has remained a lifelong metaphor.

Living in the fertile San Joaquin Valley deepened my appreciation for cycles of planting and harvesting. The United Farm Workers boycotts of the 1960s and ’70s instilled respect for honest labor and introduced a rich cultural diversity into my life.

In Southern California, near the U.S.–Mexico border, I developed an appreciation for different cultures and modes of expression, along with the understanding that basic human needs and desires transcend them.

My experience as a woman artist has led me to explore what it means to be human, within a society that places lasting value on physical beauty.

Painting allows me to communicate how I experience the world more clearly than any other medium. Through it, I explore what remains constant within life’s cycles, even as everything continues to transform.