Personal Bio:

   I grew up in a family of artists. My older brother, while not actively artistic, is extremely talented and in high school was voted as most artistic. My father, an engineer by career, has been an artist all his life and worked "after hours" creating murals for churches, paintings, and other works of art. My mother's family includes an aunt who had a degree in art and was a fashion designer, a few cousins who hold degrees and teach at universities and schools in art, and ancestors working as royal [Swedish] artisans and designers. I grew up from the age of four knowing I too, like my father, would be an artist.

"Painting by my Father" 1981

"Iris by Wendela" 2001

"Dutch Couple by my father" 1982

   I was born in Van Wert, Ohio, and shortly thereafter my parents and brother and I moved to the South. We lived out in the country in North Carolina for four years before moving to the suburbs of South Carolina. There we settled down and I spent most of my elementary years in Sumter, right outside the capitol of the state. The town itself was an old community that, lacking proper funding, has not even today evolved from the picture it would have painted in the late sixties or seventies. I remember trips "Downtown", the rows of stores and little boutiques of which half were usually open. The streets were fairly clean but shoddy, as were many of the buildings.
   The people from Sumter are a mix of black and white, with the two communities separating on either side of "the track". The cliché plays true. My school was a very good one comparatively, right down the street from my house, with about 125 children per grade. My class was 20% white, with just a few children (maybe three or four in grades K to 5) being Asian. Growing up it seemed perfectly normal, up until I was ten and my mother moved us to New York.
   New York is where she grew up, near New York City; we moved in with family from the Catskill Mountains. The town was very small but quaint and spent much time and money renovating and catering to tourists. It was a total change for me, from the surrounding nature to the small school (about 550 kids from K to 12) to even the nature of the locals. To my surprise, I found the South and the North different in as many ways internally as externally, but you wouldn't have known it living in just one or the other.
   I noticed that in our whole school, there was one black girl, whose family had moved away and left her with grandparents. There was also a huge population of Mexican immigrants who worked on local farms or lived on their own farm. The people were friendlier in many ways, but not as outgoing or social. The teachers and education, while not being the greatest, were very much more open to discuss topics in class, especially when it came to differences in Southern and Northern living (like the "Un-Civil War", racism and prejudice, history in general, religious differences, even scientific areas). I learned, coming from one to the other, there were many things I had learned, mislearned, or not learned at all, and I feel then and now that I had an advantage having the opportunity to realize these things at such an early age.
   This brings me to a lot of research done in college and post-graduation dealing with the cultural, educational, and social differences in peoples all over the world. I graduated from Margaretville Central School and spent three years in a double major BA (Art) and BA (Anthropology) program at Hartwick College in New York. At school here I met people from over 20 different countries and backgrounds as diverse as their personalities. This was also a great learning experience. I then took a year off to work and take a class at the local community college. During this time I traveled a little, worked on personal art projects, worked also on the Census, which was an experience in itself, researched almost every day in the local library, spent a lot of time in downtown Woodstock watching the locals and sketching, and thinking about the future. A year later, in 2000, I made a transfer to Winthrop University to complete my degree. I worked at a CRM firm during the summer of 2001 and returned there the following fall after graduation. I graduated with a BA in Art and a minor in Anthropology, as they were just beginning to change their Anthropology program into a Major. The following year was a combination of working all over the South, from Florida to Georgia, South and North Carolina, to Tennessee on different archaeological sites and drawing, painting a little, and throwing ideas around looking for something to test my creativity on my own. I recently acquired a Canon PowerShot A70 and am trying my hand at photography. The last year I also spent more time traveling everywhere, to Israel, Boston, Mass., New York City, Connecticut, Mississippi, Alabama, and a few other places.
   I am looking to return to school to earn a Master's or PhD in Archaeology with a concentration in Archaeological Illustration and Women's Studies. I've been involved in various research projects in college and now dealing with issues between men and women and women's "His-tory". For a list of some good reading and/or articles in areas of Art, Archaeology, Women, Travel, or related subjects, check out my LINKS and Suggested REFERENCE pages.

Draw: Beginning, II, III	Paint: I, II	Printmaking
2D, 2DII	Waterbased Media	Ceramics
Fig Draw: Hartwick I Fig Draw: Winthrop I, II, III	3D

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