Not in my wildest dreams would I have imagined I’d end up creating a brochure for the National Parks ….
Read MoreRussell Cave and a portrayal of the native archaic peoples. Acrylic on board, 36” x 40”.
Little Kingdom, 13”, graphite on Arches, 2023.
Little Kingdom
The art that now lives in the frame started with an October walk through a section of the Appalachian Trail in Gardners, PA. There, I took a few reference shots of some mushrooms I saw, including these deadly…
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Feast For Crows, 19" x 15"; oil on Arches Olio paper. 2012.
Feast For Crows
With multiples, I wanted to promote the idea that we can create social justice and change when we work together in an interdependent way— that we needn’t continue to be alone or isolated.
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Migration, 30” x 40”, oil on canvas. 2022.
Migration
So, my fun idea for the image was to imagine if these creatures were real, what natural environment and niche might they inhabit? I viewed them as pelagic creatures roaming in aether, floating gas giants possibly on a hydrogen-rich planet….
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Leap, 8” x 10”, oil on paper mounted to gessoed hardboard.
Leap
Where is she going? Where will she land? It’s much like the act of making any art. We leap and trust that we’ll land where we need to be. Are we safe? Not really, but that’s part of the thrill and delight of making art and making a life.
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Marked #3, 24" x 30", oil on canvas. 2007.
Marked #3
In my early grad school time at MICA, I was exploring the question of “gaydar” and whether someone could be recognizably LGBT. Was that a quality that could be painted or shown in a portrait if the sitter was pregnant?
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Maidenhair, 8 x 12" oil on gessoed paper. 2016. Print available.
Maidenhair
The wizened gnome in this image was added after the paintings were submitted and published in The Old Farmer’s Almanac Calendar in 2010. Initially, the calendar art called for a woodland setting showcasing Maidenhair Ferns. Ok, so then what do you do with the art?
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“The Cat Bell” painting. Oil on masonite board, 18.25” x 13.25”.
The Cat Bell
Another cover done for The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, under the excellent art direction of Gordon Van Gelder. The story is called “The Cat Bell”, by Esther Friesner, and it’s a Puss-in-Boots kind of story with a really fun ending.
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Book Werm, oil on gessoed paper 15"x 15", 2010. (Print available).
Book Werm
A Girl and her Dragon decide it’s much more fun to read and look at old books than it is to fight about silly things.
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May The Devil Take You, oil on gessoed paper, 11" x 15"; April 2012.
May The Devil Take You
The scent of leather and oil and the rumble of the machine will be irresistible. The Muse and her sidekick will take you for a ride. Sunscreen a necessity. No need for matches.
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Moonlight Toad, 12" x 15" Oil on gesssoed paper. 2005 (?). The piece was created as an advertisement for my work in the Picture Book directory and recently sold at IlluXCon.
Moonlight Toad
My agent suggested that I try my hand at anthropomorphizing a few of my favorite animals to see if I could make a transition into the narrative side of the children’s market. Aside from medical illustration, opportunities to work in hard science illustration were becoming…
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Off stage, Mickey and the gang are just bad boys. The Boys’ Club, 2010. 12" x 12" graphite on vellum.
The Boys' Club
One of 40 drawings I made for my thesis exhibition, the focus of each of the images was to subvert or disentangle the meaning of a particular story, fairy tale, or cultural mythology. In this case, I decided to have some fun with the reputation of a rather sacred cow, er… rodent….
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Wonderbread Madonna, 30” x 36”, oil on canvas. 2007.
Wonderbread Madonna
Started in 2003 while I was still at YCP, I didn’t get the impetus to finish this piece until my first year of grad school in 2007. I’m not sure why it languished in my studio for a few years. Sometimes the Muse is off wandering in the desert (I like to think she was at a jazz festival in Palm Springs).
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Delta G, 18” x 24”h, oil on canvas. 2002.
Delta G
I created a group of paintings during the early 2000s which I lumped together in a group I called “Contested Bodies”. It was my way of processing a lot of what I was getting in my feminist thought classes…
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Airless, 18” x 24”h, oil on canvas. 2002.
Airless
This image was inspired by a poem by Adrienne Rich, Snapshots of a Daughter-in-law. The line that so struck me goes like this: “She shaves her legs until they gleam like petrified mammoth tusk.” It speaks about the habits and traditions given to us from our mothers, behaviors we’d barely questioned or given a passing thought…
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Pyracantha,oil on alkyd-treated museum board. Apprx. 15” x 20”.
Pyracantha
At the time, I was living in a city neighborhood and a there was a huge, glorious specimen of this shrub growing two doors up the street from me…
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The Himba Dragon Cooks, oil on canvas, 36" x 40"; 2013.
The Himba Dragon Cooks
Author, Bill Johnson, had a great idea for a book: to ask artists to contribute art with an imagined smaller story line that was not specified in the author’s writing. Essentially, to add a mini-drama idea within the broader story. This not only gave the artists a whole lot more flexibility to create really cool paintings of women! dragons! and dogs! but it also allowed the artists to become co-creators in the story…
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“The Meeting”, 40” x 36” oil on canvas, 2011.
The Caves of D'Anath
At the end of IlluXCon 2010, where I was an exhibitor, I heard through the grapevine that author, Bill Johnson, was looking to commission fantasy artists for an upcoming glossy, hardback, high quality art book, heavy on imagery. The story involves the women of an alternate Earth-like world needing to come together to prevent an ecological disaster.
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Natural History, oil in gessoed paper, 17” x 18”. 1999.
Natural History
It’s a piece that has more of a formal design presentation with lots of natural light; quite different from the jumble and “messy” space of the “Shadows” painting I did a year later. To create this image, I set up a small table near a window in my studio and appointed the space with books, insect mounts, a skull…
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Flesh For Ichthyes, 18” x 22” graphite on Arches paper. 2012.
Flesh For Ichthyes
Part of a group of images that I affectionately called my “Revenge Series”, this image also contains the idea of multiples. Sometime in late grad school, I started to think more about how certain species of birds, fish, insects, behave as one entity…
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