My Story
I have always been fascinated by story. In particular, real people's experience stories. Beneath the details of their body-journey, full of particulars, I am most intrigued by their understanding of what has happened. How did they get through it? What did they learn? Who are they today because of it? And how do their experiences inform them?
As I share my story with you, and if you are like me, you might look for the parallels in our play.
The art I create is the result of my personal muse pushing her way through the filter of my life experiences. My history peeks out within the tiny images to reveal a one-of-a-kind piece. My art isn't as much about the final image as it is about my fascination with the process of creating through the medium of paper collage. The sheer nature of the treasure hunt-like quality of this medium lends itself perfectly to the discovery of what is within me. All history, thoughts, beliefs, hopes, and dreams are woven within each final image, no matter how complex or simple.
Living with my own personal collection of my artwork proves to me that each piece echoes not only my history, but my inner world. It literally represents what is meaningful and important in my life. This deepening understanding of the power that art has to move, connect, inspire, and remind us compels me to create work that connects me with me and you with you. And so it goes.
Innocent Beginnings
My first moment of knowing I was an artist came in Sister Rita Marie’s 3rd grade class. An art contest was announced, and only days earlier my sister had taught me how to draw a tree—the kind where each “Y” branch leads to another. With a white-knuckled grip on my No. 2 pencil, I labored over that tree on soft white paper. For the first time, I felt real pride as classmates admired it. When Sister Rita Marie announced I had won first place, that pride bloomed.
The prize was a gift certificate to a local diner. For a poor farm kid in rural Minnesota, eating in a restaurant was rare, and the sight of a burger and milkshake larger than my head felt like abundance itself. It was there that I connected the dots; I had been rewarded for expressing the very gift I had always taken for granted. I could see, sitting in that diner booth, my gift mattered.
Still, somewhere between eight and twenty-five, I drifted. I treated art as something I “visited” now and then, instead of claiming it as an important part of my life’s work. Though the inner voice never stopped reminding me, I often told myself that being an artist was for someday, not today.
The Muse's Whisper
Married and with 2 small children, I felt a quiet but insistent push to begin a portraiture business. My first drawing was of my daughter, and with it came a surprising discovery: although I hadn’t picked up a pencil in years, my skill had somehow "advanced." How could that be? I hadn’t studied in art school yet or taken formal lessons recently. Perhaps life itself had trained my eyes to see differently. Maybe it had taught me that a gift continues to grow quietly within, even when ignored. I wondered: who was it - now speaking through my pencil? Who had been doing the growing all along?
Over the next two years, I completed a series of portraits that sharpened both my technique and my vision. Friends and clients encouraged me not to stop, yet something within me resisted. Portraiture felt more like copying than creating, and while it was excellent practice, it lacked the spontaneity and organic spirit my heart craved. I longed for the freedom of pure creation, for work that felt alive and deeply connected to my soul.
I set my pencils aside and enrolled at Naropa University’s Contemplative Psychology program, with an emphasis on Expressive Arts in Healing. Though I intended to become a therapist, the arts kept pushing through, finding their way into expression despite my resistance.
With a degree in hand and a coaching practice underway, a familiar voice whispered again: “Time to paint.” By then, I had decided art was something I would only do occasionally, if inspiration happened to strike. I had lost faith in inspiration’s ability to remain steady, and so I loosened my grip on the desire to be an artist. That belief permitted me to play without the weight of trying to “make it” in the art world.
And yet, even as my mind was settled, my heart would not let go of the dream. I turned to oil painting, holding a small hope that if I mastered the so-called “medium of all mediums,” I might finally become an artist.
A Drop of Grace
What is that inner voice that urges us to express our gifts? No matter what my mind concluded, it was always there. I call it my Muse—a quiet, divine force nudging us to give form to what lives inside.
For the next ten years, I painted in oils when inspiration called, slowly improving my skill. Yet alongside my Muse was a constant pressure to “make it.” That tension shaped my subjects and medium until much of my work came from the head, not the heart. Inspiration came in bursts, followed by long stretches of disconnection and frustration. Still, I kept waiting for something to shift inside.
Then, in conversation with my longtime life coach and friend Lisa Dalton, she challenged me to create a piece of art that embodied a life lived in flow. There, on a short holiday in a Santa Fe hotel room, armed only with a few magazines, scissors, and glue, I tried. What happened felt like grace. For the first time, I created purely from my heart—not to achieve or impress, but simply to let something within find its voice.
"After creating that piece, I began to experience a continual awakening in my art. Looking back, I see there was nothing I could have done to hurry the process. What has become clear is the importance of listening closely to my inner muse—her subtle Yes and No, and the distinction between creating from the heart versus the head. Each day, I continue to listen and to learn.
I notice, too, how my art mirrors my life and my life mirrors my art. The two are inseparably woven together, and I feel grateful to grow within this space I have been given. Because I kept even the smallest door open, I was shown, at just the right time, what was waiting—when I had gathered “just enough” wisdom from all my other paths."
