I paint the things I can't stop looking at.

Have you ever really looked at a glass of wine?

I mean really looked. If you pick up a wine glass and hold it at the right angle, you'll see the entire room reflected inside it — upside down, curved, and luminous. Most people never notice. I notice it every single time, and I have never once gotten over how beautiful it is.

That's the short version of why I paint still lifes. I set up objects — a wine bottle, a conch shell, a bowl of tangerines, a martini glass — and I wait for the light to arrive. Then I paint what I actually see, not what I think is there. And what's actually there is almost always more interesting than you'd expect.

My paintings range from very tight and hyperrealistic — where I'm trying to capture every refraction of light through a glass jar — to loose and impressionistic, where I'm chasing a feeling more than a fact. I love both. They scratch completely different itches, and I think having both in my practice keeps me honest.

If you ever want to talk about a painting — what I was thinking, how long it took, whether it's available — please just ask. Seriously. I love talking about this stuff with people who are genuinely curious.

I took the long way to get here — and I wouldn't change a thing.

I have a BFA from the University of North Texas, but honestly my real education happened in the decades after. I started in advertising — production artist, freelancer, Senior Art Director, Creative Director. I was good at it. But the higher you climb in that world, the less you actually make things with your hands, and that was slowly killing me.

So I left. My husband and I built a business making printed mural décor — trompe l'oeil wallcoverings that we sold nationally and internationally. Then an inspirational art and stationery collection. Then giclée printing for other artists using a six-foot Epson printer. I entered fine art shows when I could, won some awards, sold paintings, taught privately. The whole time, oil painting was the thing I came back to whenever life let me.

In 2021, we sold most of what we owned, converted a van, and just drove. Three and a half years across the American West, parts of Canada, even Portugal – okay, so we didn't drive to Portugal, but we did drive all around that beautiful country. I took thousands of reference photos and painted as much as I could — which wasn't nearly enough, because you can't exactly leave your oils out when you're also living in your vehicle.

In 2024, we found a small farm on a lake in middle Georgia and had a real studio built. I walked in, set up my easel, arranged some objects on a table by the window, and thought: there you are. I've been painting ever since, every single day, making up for lost time.

These days my life runs on sawdust, paint, and strong coffee. I share a lot of what I'm working on here and on social media, and I genuinely love hearing from people — whether you're a collector, a fellow painter, or someone who just wants to know what paint I use. All questions welcome.