Author, Artist
Welcome to my website where cool things are happening. Grab a libation and take a few to look at the art and read about my upcoming publications.
Click to learn about my Gallery Opening and Meet the Artist event at the Delhi Event Center, January 15th, 2025. Hope to see you there.
Author
Why I write…
My mother taught me to love books at a very young age, and she read to me every day from the time I was a baby, until the day she was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. My mother was a pianist and an artist, and she spoke Spanish until ECT took away her memory, ruining her creativity. I have never forgotten the many hours we read together, and when I was the young age of nine, I began reading more advanced books like Heidi, Jane Eyre, and Little Women. I was a voracious journal keeper, recording my life in diaries and notebooks, writing letters to my friends and family, so the journey of writing has been with me. My first written book, “Someday You Will Understand,” is about my life growing up with two mentally ill parents. My father was diagnosed with bipolar disorder a few years after my mother was diagnosed. This memoir has been professionally edited and is in revision; publication date undetermined.
My second book, “Conversations With the Tuesday Night Girls,” is published with Amazon. It is a collection of short stories about a group of women in their 50s and 60s, who gather every Tuesday night on one friend’s porch in nice weather or in her Farmhouse kitchen to chat about everything, from garage sales to goiters, from science fiction to politics, we cover it all with a smattering of humor. “Conversations With the Tuesday Night Girls” is a creative non-fiction, based on true events and stories from 2009 to the present.
Why do I write? Because I must. I cannot imagine a day without writing. Yes, writing and painting occasionally trip over each other, but a GREAT day for me is when I have the time to do both. I have been and always will be a voracious reader, and an added benefit to being entertained is learning about voice, syntax, new words and so many other things. I have nurtured that creative pursuit for most every day of my life.
In 2024, I was nominated for a Pushcart Prize for my story, “String Bean Jean and Clara Commode,” published in Story Circle Network’s annual anthology series, “Real Women Write.” I’ve been published in Indiana Voice Journal, Story Circle Network Journal and was privileged to win First Place in an SCN Life-writing competition in 2023, and my stories and essays have been published by Indiana Voice Journal, Story Circle Network Journal, and other publications.
I live in Cincinnati with my companion,Tilly, a golden/shepherd mix. If you mosey on over to my paintings, you will find a portrait of her there.
Artist
Why I paint…
My mother was an artist. As a three-year old, I sat at her feet in the late Fifties while she painted at her easel, mostly floral still-life paintings. I had not developed an interest in painting until 2005 when I awoke from a dream that I had been painting a young woman and her little brother under a huge umbrella in a rainstorm toward the end of the 19th Century.
I leaped from bed and ran to the craft store to buy three tubes of paint: black, white and orange, because that is what I used in the dream. The painting was in various shades of grey, with one spot of orange — the hat on the boy’s head. I first drew the dream onto canvas board and then painted it just as I remembered it. The painting was not remarkable, but nor was it awful. I had been bitten by the bug.
But why do I paint? Paintings tell stories, and every one of my paintings, whether still life or portrait, sheds some light on history that resonates with both myself and the those who buy my work. Please feel free to look through some of my art posted here (below), and thank you for stopping by!
Exhibitions
Pendleton Art Gallery, monthly show ….... 2010-16
Indian Hill Gallery, florals exhibit .……………….. 2020
Delhi Township Art Center and Gallery ... 2025
“Literature is the art of discovering something extraordinary about ordinary people, and saying with ordinary words something extraordinary.”
— Boris Pasternak