About

   aTelier DNA is the name of my studio in Sonoma County, California, where I have worked since 2013.

   b. 1953 Youngstown, Ohio. At age 17 I took my “portfolio” (such as it was) to Higbee’s department store in downtown Cleveland, to seek a job as fashion illustrator.  The bobbed coiffured lady in her sensible shoes turned me down.  I came up with a better idea; to get to know my family in Austria.  So I travelled with a girlfriend; we worked as waitresses and Stubemädchen (cleaning hotel rooms) and avoided a few “near miss” incidents.  I began studies of Secessionist, Dada, Jugendstil, Abstract Expressionist and Impressionist music, aRt and literature in Linz and then Vienna, Austria, at Modeschule Hetzendorf (1971-73) and with Josef Schützenhöfer (1971-1982).  

   I returned to my hometown (Olmsted Falls, OH) in 1974, with a baby boy and started over again as a waitress.  When I was robbed one night after my shift, I told my Dad I had to get out of the small town where I grew up…swallowing hard to leave my infant son.  I joined U.S. Navy in 1976, as a parachute rigger, just after Viet Nam and before women were allowed to serve on ships.  To spare my parents the cost of college, I used generous in-service education benefits, earned B.S. (University of New York Regents - 1981) and earned a commission as an Ensign.  Later, still on active duty, I earned M.A. Ed. (George Washington University - 1991).  I retired in 2000 after 24 years of service, at age 47. 

After leaving the service, I used G.I. Bill benefits and earned a second undergraduate (B.F.A.) degree at Old Dominion University, Norfolk VA (2010).

   I worked hard to honor my academic education in aRt.  But early in my training, my canvases veered to abstraction and I thought, made beautiful fabric designs.  The freedom to self-express after a rigid, intense experience in the military turned my paintings bold, uninhibited and full of movement.  After many more years, aRt was more than a hobby, it was therapy.

   Few paintings are complete in an afternoon; yet some of my most successful pieces were completed early in my formal studies and some in a day or two.  Most now develop after months (or years) because I always start my paintings with the reckless belief that something wonderful can happen by simply obeying my angst and intuition.  I use color to represent things other than things.  The compositions are transferred to fabric and from there, created in to sculpted 3D pieces.