As a little girl I traveled all the time as my father was in the military. We were either overseas or on the road; and I would be in the backseat of the car with my brothers, viewing landscape, license plates and the Thunderbird, my favorite car. This started my trek of traveling on the road and taking pictures of towns, aging buildings & historical objects. As a kid, I started collecting hand-painted postcards from the 50’s and 60’s and later decided that the scenes I saw would look interesting hand painted. I also was inspired by American kitsch.
In the 80’s, I was hired to be the photographer at Western Scenic Studios, an Oakland event & film company that had been around for 100 years. Charlie Chaplin hired this company to paint backdrop scenery for his movies. I was a painter and printmaker who suddenly worked with the camera and fell in love with it. I wanted to get better at shooting pictures and worked with master photographer Bill Davis who had been an assistant to Eliot Porter. Every two years, I took workshops with a master photographer—mainly Phil Borges, Tewfic ElSawy, and Raul Touzon—who helped me gain confidence as I developed a travel portfolio. My current world and domestic photography series is called “The Beauty of Culture”.
The Beauty of Aging photographs were taken on my travels during the last twenty years. I have exhibited my work in the Bay Area; Aspen, Colorado; Taos, New Mexico and Tucson, Arizona. I received my Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting from the University of Arizona and Master of Arts degree in Printmaking/Photography at the San Francisco Art Institute. Between 1995 and 1998, I was supported by an art patron to create etchings and monotypes at the Kala Institute in Berkeley. My work has traveled to museums and art centers in Colorado and Arizona supported by the Western Commission for the Arts. In 1996, I was artist-in-residence at Magnolia Editions in Oakland where I worked with a master printer on lithographs from my photographs. In 2008 I had a solo show at Smith Andersen North, San Anselmo, California, of my hand-painted diptychs.
My work can be found in the collections of Crocker Bank in Los Angeles; Blanc & Otus PR; Field Paoli Architects in San Francisco; and Seadden, Arp & Slate Advertising in New York as well as several private collections. Here is a list of selected exhibitions where my work has been shown:
2020 Bay Area Open, De Young Museum, San Francisco
2018 Image Flow Gallery, Group show, “Alternative Processes in Photography,” Mill Valley
2016 Solo show, Donor Gallery, Art Works Downtown, San Rafael
2014 Transitions, Photography show, Art Works Downtown, San Rafael
2012 Kunkler Design and Showroom Gallery, San Rafael
2010 Center for Creative Photography, Alumni Show, Tucson, AZ and Falkirk Invitational, San Rafael, CA
2009 Dia de los Muertos, exhibition of Altars, Artworks Downtown and SFMOMA Artist Gallery, Group Show, San Francisco, CA
2008 Solo Show, Smith Andersen North, San Anselmo, CA
2007 SFMOMA Artist Gallery, Summer group show, San Francisco
2006 Alternative Techniques in Photography, Marin Civic Center San Rafael
2005 Creative Center for Photography, Tucson, AZ
1992 – 2005 Work shown and displayed at SFMOMA Artist’s Gallery
2002 Sonoma Museum of Visual Arts
2001 Laguna Art Museum
1999 Taos Fall Arts Invitational
1998 Banacker Gallery
1997 Olga Dollar Gallery
1996 Artifacts Gallery
1995 Allport Gallery
1994 Kala Institute
1993 Harlan & Allen Gallery