I was born in Keene, New Hampshire, in 1961. I lived nearby in a little town called Ashuelot. Every weekday, I walked across the century-old Ashuelot Covered Bridge on my way to the four-room schoolhouse. But then when I was nine, my family moved to South Glens Falls, New York, in the foothills of the Adirondack Mountains.

I’ve enjoyed drawing since I was a young girl, especially drawing people. And over the years I've taken drawing courses at various colleges and currently take life drawing classes at the Art Students League "atelier" program in New York City. I've considered pursuing a studio art degree—with a concentration in painting—but for now have decided to study on my own. For the time being, I want to rely on my own instincts and let my style grow naturally. I want my paintings to come from me. So, with thirteen years of self study under my belt, I am, for the most part, a self-taught painter.

In my twenties I became interested in photography, and that in turn sparked a curiosity of how those photos would look if they were paintings instead. I had become an admirer of Vincent van Gogh and was drawn to the way he transformed the ordinary scenes and people he encountered into vibrant and living pieces of art, even people that many would describe as repulsive to look at. That is what I wanted to do. I wanted to paint the ordinary scenes and people I encountered daily and during my travels. I wanted to show that the people we meet and see everyday aren’t always beautiful and cheerful.

A fellow artist told me not long ago that my paintings displayed a narrative quality that many artists spend years searching for and never find. I find that quite often the ordinary scenes and people I encounter – the looks on their faces, the things they are doing – have hidden stories to tell. But I sometimes have to look deep to get to that story. When I find a scene that captures my attention, and I fill the canvas with color and feeling, those stories seem to come to the surface of the canvas, although the story I discover may not be the same story another viewer may find. Even in my paintings where people are nowhere to be found, their presence can still be sensed.