About my work
I create photography-based artworks inspired by the beauty and mysteries of the natural world. Through macrophotography and time spent wandering outdoors, time slows and tiny worlds pull me in. The fungi, stones, trees, and sand contain fantastic worlds, of cosmic proportions and occasionally leave me teary-eyed with my toes in the sand or boots in the mud.
Photography allows me to pause these fleeting moments and study the intricate shapes and patterns hidden in plain sight. I work mostly with alternative photographic printing methods using sunlight, light-sensitive salts, and long exposures, which means I sometimes feel less like a photographer and more like a chemist or field scientist. Experimentation has led me down other paths working with threads, collage, abstract painting, and off loom weaving.
I’m drawn to slow processes that welcome imperfection and surprise, where unpredictability becomes part of the artwork itself. I hope my work inspires curiosity and an invitation to slow down, notice the extraordinary details on the planet and beyond.
Background
My art practice started in my 20s, simmered, stopped, and has recently started up again. I was swooped up into project management corporate life during the dot-com craze of the ‘90s. As a side hustle, I started photographing weddings, starting with putting out a classified ad in the printed Microsoft Newsletter for employees. Next thing I know, I’m booked every weekend in the summer for a few years. When MSN 1.0 was launched, I was hired as a freelance photographer to collaborate with art directors to photograph the rubble at the Oklahoma City bombing site. Another interesting photo assignment was to travel to Lilith Fair in rural Washington and Oregon, photographing live performances, (my main gig in those years) and the first real-time chat with musicians, onsite under a tent with wires everywhere. The photos were always too big to fit through the pipes that delivered the content to people’s computers at the time. The end result was little photos meant to convey big events and ideas. Hard work and crazy times, but inspired me to experiment. Dot-com turned to dot-bomb. I keep at the project management career, leaving my artistic practice on hold for a long time, aside from daily photo ops with the kids. My day job continues in the design consultancy world, as a program manager at frog design, as AI enters the picture. Another fork in the creative timeline. I’ll stay on the organic side, thank you very much.
Now that my babies are grown up, I have a desire to turn my attention back to the studio, the darkroom, and create again. See what happens, go with the flow, and share my favs.
I hold a bachelor’s of fine arts in photography from the University of Washington and a Graduate Certificate in Museum Studies, with an emphasis on art museums, from Harvard Extension School. As a lifelong learner, I continue to experiment and attend workshops in a variety of art methods and ways of thinking. I’m a proud member of the Photographic Center Northwest and Seattle native.
