Bio

I studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia. I received a number of awards there, including a William Emlen Cresson Memorial Traveling Scholarship. I earned a BFA and certificate of Art Education from The University of the Arts in Philadelphia. In 1980 I finished an MFA in Painting from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I spent a number of years as a freelance illustrator for Philadelphia Magazine and other local publications, and was a courtroom illustrator for CBS news from 1982 until 1987.

I was a resident artist at The Samuel Fleisher Art Memorial from 1981 until 1985, and taught various classes including Life Painting and Drawing there until 2010. I was employed by Temple/Tyler University in Philadelphia for six years as a full time adjunct instructor and was also an instructor of Art History and Life Drawing at the Hussian School of Art in Philadelphia for five years. In addition, I wrote an undergraduate Liberal Arts course in Visual Language and Art History which I taught at Rutgers University in Camden, New Jersey for four years.

Concurrent with College Teaching, I was involved in early elementary art education for ten non-consecutive years. My work was primarily with under served communities in the Philadelphia/New Jersey areas. Most recently I was part of a founding team of Arts faculty at an experimental elementary school, which was funded by the State of Pennsylvania in partnership Swarthmore College, Pennsylvania.

I have exhibited my work since 1985. I was awarded an Individual Artist Grant from the Pennsylvania State Council on the Arts in 1987. I was represented by and exhibited at the Charles More Gallery in Philadelphia, and have participated in group, faculty, and solo exhibitions including at the Lawrence Gallery of Rosemont College, The Philadelphia Art Alliance, Ackland Art Museum UNC, The Wind Challenge of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Philadelphia Art Alliance, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Woodmere Art Museum, Noyes Museum of Art, The University of Delaware, and the Drawing Center of NYC. I was also a founding member of Nexus Gallery, Philadelphia, where I exhibited in group and solo shows.

In 2015 and 2016 I spent a month at the Vermont Studio Center as a resident, and in 2017 returned to VSC for a third residency.

Other Art Works:

From 1990 until 2010, during which time I was painting, exhibiting, and teaching part time, I also worked in the commercial field of Toy Design. I produced sculpted prototype collector dolls for Zapf-Creation Germany, whose products were featured at FAO Schwarz NYC. My work became very well known in this milieu. I was nominated for many industry awards, several articles were written about my designs, and my work was featured in books which celebrated the works of contemporary Doll Artists. In addition to production work, I created individual mixed media sculptures/dolls, which were exhibited at such venues as the Jacob Javitts Center Invitational “The Doll as Art” exhibition for International Toy Fair. My works were included in venues related to the field of mixed media figural sculpture at Devine Gallery NYC, Trump Plaza, and in other group exhibitions in New Orleans, Chicago, and Berlin, Germany.