I FIRST touched Ground

In Westport, Connecticut, a liberal enclave and friendly cousin to New York City. 

The famous Fitzgeralds summered near the shores of our tiny beach. Paul Newman, a nice man, lived there .  Linda Blair, the possessed actress from the Exorcist, called Westport home.  "The Stepford Wives" was filmed on location.

My parents divorced before I could speak. Their respective illness and brilliance built the house that's often found burning in my art.  The fire is only partially fictitious.

As a side note, everybody smoked and nobody rolled down the car windows. 

It was hard to grow in the shadows.

My favorite place that disappeared was “The Pink Ice Cream Parlor”. Marbled counters, fancy glass vessels and a $60 dessert called the Pig’s Trough. I licked the dots off of paper candy strips and felt comforted in the visual abundance of this old-fashioned sanctuary.

Back then, some people had frizzy hair. My third grade winter coat was a used army jacket.  By October, I was cold.  Looking out the car window, I hated that landscape when the world went winter gray.

My bedroom was the place where I drew, painted, built architectural fantasies and secretly danced around in the mirror.  The walls were two shades too pink for my own eye. 

In college, I started art school but left to attend film school.  I was too young to be so quiet.  NYU provided me with an incredible education in storytelling and nuance; a thread that runs through everything that I make.  I interned at Saturday Night Live, Good Morning America and quickly realized that I wasn’t loud enough to be in the “business”.  I craved my quiet room.

My windblown bones and internal compass sent me to California.  My six-month experiment turned into a newfound, permanent home.  The long winter shadows disappeared and the brilliant light and open space gave me the breathing room I never knew I needed. 

My MFA work was informed by my interest in narrative, but sprang from a different place.  Film turned into walls, into objects, which turned into paintings.  Currently, I'm drawing and filming.  I'm scratching for stories and universes and digging for beautiful dirt.

My husband, Craig Stanman is a wonderful photographer.  He pulls me out of the studio and takes me to fantastic places like Cambodia, China, Vietnam and East LA.  We have a house in Mexico.  My cat-like nature works well with his dog-like instincts.

I work very hard in the studio.  I am disciplined and wish I had a double life so that I could make two bodies of work at once.

Making art is all I want to do with my life.  It gets in the way of everything else.  But I make time for the people I love. Luckily for me, there are many on that list.