about

Born in Raleigh, North Carolina I am the youngest and only daughter of five siblings.
Interested in art at an early age, I remember looking forward to attending high school so I could enroll in the elective art classes that were being taught there. Fortunately for me I had an excellent high school art teacher, Rosemary Winn, who was supportive, encouraging and helped her students to enter contests and win almost every high school art award out there.

I continued my studies at Georgia State University where I was fortunate again in being a student of Ralph Gilbert, who has been my mentor since. Ralph was also very supportive and instrumental in my development as a draftsperson and painter. I am so appreciative to have had such caring, knowledgeable and giving teachers.

While attending college I worked as an assistant to the internationally known Illustrator Bill Mayer. The experience of working with Bill is where I learned much of what I know about illustration and concepting. I couldn’t have had a better influence for prolific, wacked out creativity than that!!

In 1997, I headed west to Austin, Texas. It was there that I began my studies in “plein air” (out of doors) landscape painting and continued my studies with the figure and portraits.

In 2002, I began to study forensic art. It is an area I have always had an interest in and I decided to pursue it as a career. I now live in Irmo, SC and work as a Forensic Artist for the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division. The majority of my work is composite sketches, followed by facial reconstructions on the skull, post-mortem drawings, and age progressions. I have trained with the best and I feel fortunate in the opportunity to be able to use my art skills and talent in a more meaningful way to help solve crimes, and to help victims and their families.

Below is my “Artist’s Statement”
which pertains to my fine art work of drawings and paintings.


						About Me
						About Me



					Born in Raleigh, North Carolina I am the youngest and only daughter of five siblings. Interested in art at an early age, I remember looking forward to attending high school so I could enroll in the elective art classes that were being taught there. Fortunately for me I had an excellent high school art teacher, Rosemary Winn, who was supportive, encouraging and helped her students to enter contests and win almost every high school art award out there. I continued my studies at Georgia State University where I was fortunate again in being a student of Ralph Gilbert, who has been my mentor since. Ralph was also very supportive and instrumental in my development as a draftsperson and painter. I am so appreciative to have had such caring, knowledgeable and giving teachers. While attending college I worked as an assistant to the internationally known Illustrator Bill Mayer. The experience of working with Bill is where I learned much of what I know about illustration and concepting. I couldn’t have had a better influence for prolific, wacked out creativity than that!! In 1997, I headed west to Austin, Texas. It was there that I began my studies in “plein air” (out of doors) landscape painting and continued my studies with the figure and portraits. In 2002, I began to study forensic art. It is an area I have always had an interest in and I decided to pursue it as a career. I now live in Irmo, SC and work as a Forensic Artist for the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division. The majority of my work is composite sketches, followed by facial reconstructions on the skull, post-mortem drawings, and age progressions. I have trained with the best and I feel fortunate in the opportunity to be able to use my art skills and talent in a more meaningful way to help solve crimes, and to help victims and their families. Below is my “Artist’s Statement” which pertains to my fine art work of drawings and paintings.








					Artist’s Statement The majority of the fine art work shown on this web site (the landscapes, portraits and figures) represents the four and a half years I lived in Austin, Texas from 1997 to 2001. It was during this time that I began my studies in plein air (that’s French for “out of doors”) landscape painting. I fell in love with being outdoors painting at one with nature, bugs and all!, dealing with a constantly changing light source (sun), and working from life trying to understand my craft by means of studying the natural world around me. Plein air landscape painting provides a great challenge in capturing a moment or place in time that will never be the same again. It is a reminder in life that everything is temporary and is constantly changing. It is about being in the moment. The same scene or set up will never happen the same again. Tomorrow will be a different landscape to paint with new and different challenges. In my work the experience is one of personal reflection and an attempt to convey often ambiguous feelings in a sound visual image. In my fine art, I always work from direct observation. This is a practice that I believe is crucial to improving my artistic skills as a draftsperson and a painter. Not only does it help me to better understand the physical and natural world around me but also it is just what I prefer. It’s the journey, the process, and the experience of working from life that motivates me to draw and paint. For me the joy of creating is experiencing the interaction between myself and the world around me. I have been studying the figure since my college days at Georgia State University where I was fortunate enough to have a masterfully skilled drawing teacher, Ralph Gilbert, to help guide me. I have always enjoyed drawing the human figure and find it an endlessly challenging subject. Although I have taken many different paths in my artistic endeavors my goal has remained the same, to be true to the world around me as I experience it. I believe that in order for a work of art to communicate and connect with people it must hold a ring of truth for the viewer to be able to relate. Be it truth in conveying emotions that we all feel, or truth in an honest attempt to create an image that expresses or represents an idea that is meaningful.