about

I’ve thoroughly enjoyed a career of writing and illustrating children’s books. Recently I have turned my focus to hands-on crafts, printmaking, drawing, and painting. Merging my love of art and music, I have created a series of hand-cranked illustrated scrolls set to music, also known as “crankies.” 

I grew up in the wooded hills of a southwest Pennsylvania river valley in a family of cultural contradictions. Commercial art school taught me a variety of practical skills but it was a trip to Mexico that changed everything for me as an artist.  I fell in love with pure sun-drenched color and unabashed decorative pattern, and upon my return I enrolled in the University of Colorado to study fine arts.

My family has lived a bit of a gypsy lifestyle, from Washington, to Oregon, Alaska, and the Catskills of New York. We call the Pacific Northwest home where we are surrounded by music and fir trees in our hand-built cedar gingerbread house. I still believe that the magic found in fairytales is a message to uncover the treasures that lie within us and that we are put on this earth to partake in adventure.