I received my BFA from Bowling Green University with a concentration in oil painting in 1997. I currently work in 2 dimensional mixed media art. Most of my art is done in encaustics (painting with beeswax mixed with resin and pigment). It’s such a versatile medium and offers endless ways to explore. I love that I can make the surface of a painting incredibly smooth or I can carve and embed objects into the wax. Painting with liquid wax is both satisfying and challenging. The wax has to be heated to around 200 degrees to be able to paint with it. It hardens quickly once it touches the wood canvas and has to be fused in layers with a heat gun or a blow torch.

Some of the materials I love incorporating into wax are handmade papers, vintage book pages, my grandmother’s old sewing patterns, beads, threads, and dried botanicals. I feel like I can express my love of nature and create atmospheric work best in this way. Melting the wax and fusing each layer to the previous one takes quite a bit of practice and patience. The process of building and taking away reflects so much of how I feel about life. We are always building and repairing ourselves. My pieces are typically a reflection of how I feel about things I see in nature or my surroundings. In a way I’m trying to share the sense of the mystery, beauty and sometimes decay I see in life and nature.

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