Welcome

I began doing artwork at the age of 10 when my parents sent my sister and me to “art lessons”. Unbeknownst to us, the teacher was a renowned commission portrait artist in Buffalo, New York named Lazlo Szabo. What I experienced there has been with me all my life. Throughout my life as a wife, mother, elementary school  teacher  and Speech- Language Pathologist, I have continued to do art sporadically but enthusiastically. About two years ago, after taking a class in Portrait Drawing with Dawn Miller at Fletcher Farm School for Arts and Crafts in Ludlow, Vermont, I began doing art continuously. I subsequently took a class with Robert Carsten, which gave me the added inspiration to focus on pastel work.

I am now inspired to dedicate my work in the area of pastel portraiture. I find it is so rewarding to produce a painting that not only captures a physical likeness but portrays the essence and personality of my subject.

I am a member of the Portrait Society of America, the Pastel Society of America and the Vermont Pastel Society(VPS). I participate in the VPS Midstate hub group of fellow artists.

I attended the Portrait Society of America conference in Washington, D.C. in April 2016 and the International Association of Pastel Societies (IAPS) conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico in June 2017. At these sites I attended demonstrations and workshops to learn from the best in the field: Anna Rose Bain, Judith Carducci, Michelle Dunaway, Rose Frantzen, Anthony Ryder, Cuong Nguyen, Diane Rapizi, Rita Kirkman and Gwenneth Barthe-White.

I am so grateful to all these artists and the many more I have encountered for their generosity in sharing their knowledge, experiences, techniques and talent so that I could better myself and my artwork.