The search for meaning has been the central driving force in my life. As a young girl I found I had a strong affinity for visual images and making art objects. Drawing and the creative process became the way I explored my world and expressed myself. I have never stopped.

I was raised on a farm in the Willamette Valley of Oregon. There I began to develop my strong connection with nature and the earth. It was on the farm that I learned to invent and make things. And it was in my early childhood that I began connecting with memories of my Native American ancestors. From a young age I have been curious about the ghosts of the past, time, and the weaving together of creation. For me, the veil between the concrete world and the world of the spirit is thin. When I create I walk out of time and place between those two worlds.

Through the years I have become convinced that we are all connected; people, animals, plants, stones, sky, water. All of creation is a living web, flowing from the past into the future. That interconnectedness is apparent in my painting style. I like acrylic paint because I can create many layers quickly, glazing over images and at times erasing and working between layers so that the history of the piece and the connections show through. I concern myself with space and the breaking down of plane and perspective in order to break out of realism and suggest another world. I also play with transparency and opacity to create a window into the mysterious reality we sometimes sense just beyond the edge of our vision.

From this sort of manipulation you can see that I was schooled in the modern art movement. I enjoy the formal problems of line, shape, space and color. Yet I cannot get away from drawing and the narrative possibilities inherent in recognizable imagery. I am attracted to the universal language of symbols and the human figure. They enable me to explore questions of culture, society and spirituality.