I grew up in Cape Ann, Massachusetts. I acknowledge a diversity of influences: punk and butoh aesthetics (postwar Japanese death dance), yoga and Buddhist studies, parochial school mysticism, queer subjectivity, water and cloud gazing (what I call immersion therapy), and 20 years of living in San Francisco, the world's most amazing counter/cultural stew. My not-so-local heroes include: Rogier van der Weyden, Giotto, James Joyce, T. S. Eliot, Patti Smith,... my supportive Maine-based family and my Colby mentors, sculptor Harriett Matthews and painter/filmmaker Abbott Meader. In the studio, I alternate between bursts of concentration in different mediums, simultaneously having an array of big oil paintings and a series of intimately-scaled monotypes. I am known to meander philosophically, using the English language (words and syntax) in a most non-linear fashion. My friends find this either amusing or thoroughly unnerving. I love the poetry of James Joyce but make no attempt at neat comprehension. I like fluidity and strength of passion.

I have moved in and out of the academic world since I received my MFA from the University of Pennsylvania in 1978. I love teaching, and am committed to its pursuit. In 2000, I took a faculty position at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, where I teach Drawing, Design, and Printmaking. I now divide my time between San Francisco and the Midwest, having wonderful friends and great studios in both places. In my next life, I plan on coming back as a surfer, poet, and political activist.