Growing up in San Diego, California, the highlight of every year was camping trips to isolated, gorgeous wild places.  I was immersed in visually magical places.  At a very early age, these landscapes thrilled and enchanted me, and later became the driving force behind my painting.

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I graduated with a degree in Fine Art from the University of California at Davis, as well as a K-12 teaching degree.  After 3 years teaching high school art in Pendleton, Oregon,   the position was eliminated.  I became an elementary school Reading Specialist, teaching reading to emerging readers.  In 1991 we moved to Bend, and I continued as a Reading Specialist.  While this was extremely rewarding, it was also totally time and energy consuming.   Then, close to retirement in 2003,   I took a workshop in pastel painting, a medium I’d never tried.  By the time that first workshop was over, I was hooked, heart and soul, by the brilliance and immediacy of pastel painting.  

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 I retired from teaching in 2007, and over time, as my painting developed, I took more workshops in pastel landscape painting from artists Susan Ogilvie, Richard McKinley, and Barbara Jaenicke .  Living in Central Oregon, magical landscapes are everywhere.  I have especially loved kayaking the high lakes of the Cascades, with my camera in tow, feeling like I can never get enough of the exquisite beauty surrounding me.