I was raised on the Southern California coast, and I think the place never quite left me. Childhood there meant long days in the ocean — more hours in the water than out of it — and somewhere in all that salt and light I formed a devotion to the natural world that has never loosened its hold. Everything I've painted since seems, in some way, to return to it.

I came to art early and have followed it my whole life. My formal training lasted two years, grounded in the foundational techniques of the Great Masters, and I'm grateful for the discipline of it. But it was Impressionism that I truly fell for — its light, its color, the way it lets emotion stay fluid rather than fixed. That was the language I'd been looking for.

These days I live a quieter, more rural life. I've kept horses for over twenty years, and we share the place with five dogs who consider it theirs. I love the pace of pastoral life, but I've never lost my pull toward the city either — my family ties to Los Angeles keep me close to its energy. I've come to see this as a kind of double vision: the coast and the country, the still and the vivid. Both find their way onto the canvas, and I've stopped trying to keep them separate.