About Me

I graduated from Wake Forest University with a B.A. in Studio Art with Honors in Painting and a double-minor in Art History and French. For 3 years, I taught those subjects to junior high and high school students at Trinity School at Meadow View in nearby Falls Church, Virginia. From there, I moved to Richmond, Virginia to develop own painting portfolio and pursue graduate studies at the Virginia Commonwealth University's School of the Arts. Graduating in 2009 with a Masters in Art Education and Virginia teaching license, I taught high school in multiple high schools including those in Fairfax County Public Schools. As I married in 2011 and started a family, painting and teaching slowed down while I worked on my two great masterpieces, my daughter and son. As those two life-long collaborative projects became more self-sufficient, I was able to start taking on one or two private art students. As my children began elementary school, I was able to devote time to painting and complete one or two commissions per year.

Open-Air Art Lessons was one of the few bittersweet blessings from the COVID pandemic. As learning and much of life went virtual, neighbors and friends asked (begged may be more accurate) if I would please consider teaching art in person. As I have a screened-in porch and some space for social distancing and my own children were desperate for hands-on kinesthetic, creative, and in-person learning, God made it clear that it was time to write lessons and teach classes again. Open-Air Art Lessons was born in the late spring of 2020. Over the subsequent years and series of classes, Open-Air Art Lessons facilitated the transition of my porch into a semi-enclosed art studio. The screen door remains open and welcoming, keeps us in tune with nature, and allows for air flow both for health and safety reasons. Heaters keep us working through the falls and winter and removable winterized walls allow us to return to the cross-breeze of the screened porch for spring and summer. I've enjoyed teaching group classes, private lessons, and semi-private (family members or 2-3 close friends together).

On the day I was born, my grandmother brought a set of oil paints to the hospital. Grandma Ruby's prophetic gift combined with time in Grandpa Raymond's carpentry workshop, I seemed almost destined to be an artist of some kind. I graduated from Wake Forest University in 2002 with a BA in Studio Art with Honors in Painting and a double major in Art History and French. I taught art in private schools until I went back to get my Masters in Art Education from VCU in 2009. In my 20+ years, I've taught everything from PreK to Introduction to Sculpture at the college level.

Although I am well-versed in a variety of mediums, oil painting and drawing are my specialties. I love nature, the human form, color, God and His word in scripture, music, cinema, and poetry. Much of my work is informed by spirituality and the female experience.

My Artwork