I took my first acrylic painting class nearly 20 years ago at Tulane University following the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. It turned out to be my favorite class in university but I didn’t touch acrylic again until 2025. After leaving my job as a consultant due to burnout, what I wanted (and needed) most was to get back to painting.

I've been an artist my whole life—oil pastels, pottery, metalworking, photography, watercolors. I am also a trained and licensed architect, so drawing and perspective have always been part of how I see. But acrylic painting is my favorite because of the vibrancy of the colors and how quickly you can express so much.

A couple of classes later at UC Berkeley to reignite that love, and now I've created nearly 50 pieces in six months. I paint almost every weekday in my attic studio—midmorning when the house is quiet, my kids are at school, and I can turn on good music and create!

I'm drawn to ordinary things we don't always pause to appreciate:

• the way light hits fruit and creates different tones

• the varying features and skin tones of faces through highlights and shadows

• the challenge of capturing flowers that are captivating to observe yet so hard to translate to canvas

My subjects—fruit, flowers, faces, figures—connect to bigger questions I hold about women’s creativity and expression, especially as I watch my two daughters discover their own voices.

Right now I'm exploring looser, more expressive techniques through brushwork and palette knife, discovering textures, and crafting my authentic voice and style. I love playing with color, texture, and pattern. I also try to get out on artist dates once a week around the Bay Area to gather inspiration.

I hope when people see my work it brings some lightness to their day and an appreciation for the immense variety found in this world: different cultures, people, foods, and ordinary things that are actually extraordinary when you pause and notice.

What has surprised me most about developing my art practice is how much energy I get from it. Right now it feels easeful, like it's pulling me in. It feels like home - the place where I am at my best.