AWARDS:

2012

First Place 2D MM Tulsa Mayfest

Award of Distinction 2-D Spring Queeny Park, St. Louis

Merit Award - Painting Memphis River Arts Festival, Memphis, TN

2011

First Place - Gold Coast Art Fair Chicago, IL

2010

First Place Fine Art - Sugar Creek Art Festival hosted my McLean Arts Center

First Place Painting - Dallas 500 Inc

One of the featured artists for the Broad Ripple Art Fair - Indianapolis Arts Center

2009

First Place Painting - Artfest - hosted by the Dallas 500

First Place Fine Art - Downer's Grove Fine Art Festival

2008

First Place Fine Art - Downer's Grove Fine Art Festival

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I am an abstract expressionist. My passion is for the emotional. My paintings are very contemporary and bold in their appeal.

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I create images, both from nature and from within, bringing the vision to form through my use of color, composition,and texture. My finished pieces communicate a strong and vivid emotional statement on canvas.

I went to Kansas State University in the hopes of becoming something else. Before long, I began wondering why I was pursuing a degree without any conviction. Then my Mom came to visit and handed off her art supplies. I began to experiment and then found I could not stop. The next semester I switched all my classes to art history, drawing, and painting. I had finally found my passion.

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After my Dad passed away in 1994. I lost my spirit. I picked up my paint brushes again in 2004 and I am finally complete again. I keep my last unfinished painting from 1994, hanging in my house. It is a reminder of how far I have come and to never to put down my brushes again. I incorporate my Dad's memory into a majority of my work. Many of the lines in my work are made from the antique bed springs from my Dad's childhood bed.

I was born in 1968 in the town of Mount Carmel, Illinois. My family moved shortly thereafter to my childhood home in Great Bend, Kansas. This is where my art interests began. I spent countless hours watching my mother paint.

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I currently live in St. Louis, MO with my husband and my two children...and an assortment of furry animals, the occassional lizard, and herd of hermit crabs.

For other updates and stories about me and my work, please follow me on Facebook. Click on icon below to find my page