I escaped into the rich landscape of art as a child. Since my parents divorced when I was very young, I spent long hours alone drawing while my mother worked. I remember my shocked amazement when my third grade "Robin in a Tree" won a prize in Madison, Wisconsin's citywide elementary school art show. In high school, I was surprised again by a scholarship awarded to one student from each high school each summer to study watercolor with Parnell Bach. Watercolor became my first love. I had my first one-man show in a Madison bank just off Capitol Square, and participated in numerous side walk art shows. Everything sold.

In my freshman year as an art major at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, I met my future husband. Love supplanted ambition. I remember one of my art professors weeping for my wasted talent when I told him I was leaving school to marry. As he suspected I would, I gave myself wholly to family responsibilities and now enjoy the company of seven wonderful adults who happen to be our sons and daughter. That professor need not have worried, however, I couldn't entirely abandon art.

When the last of our seven children entered first grade, I enrolled in Brigham Young University, studying with fantasy illustrator James Christensen. After our move to Maryland, I continued classes at Howard Community College as a Maryland Delegate Scholar and graduated 4.0, with a Phi Theta Kappa National Guistwhite finalist Scholarship. At this juncture, urged by my husband to fulfill my dream, and encouraged by one of the first-ever grants from the Howard County Arts Council, I entered Smith College as an Ada Comstock Scholar where I studied Intaglio with Gary Neiswonger, and four-color printing with Dwight Pogue. In May 2000, I graduated cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, a double major in studio art and English literature. For my senior show, I exhibited 17 pieces. Later, the jury selected two for the Ada Comstock Scholar's 25th Anniversary show commemorated by a published volume, Textured Lives: Celebrating Ada Comstock Scholars at Smith College. In 2003, my eleven color linoleum block print Fourth of July won national recognition.