I grew up outside Philadelphia in a converted stone mill surrounded by gardens and woods. In summer we went to a mountain farm in Vermont. My four siblings and I lived outdoors, enchanted with the plants and animals all around us. My sketchbook went everywhere with me and I drew anything and everything that came into my orbit. Many of my parent’s friends were artists, and they all took an interest in me, guiding and encouraging me. There was never any question of what I would do with my life.

After graduating college, and after teaching a year at a different college, I came to Vermont, to my parent’s mostly abandoned farm, to figure things out. I met my husband while teaching in the local school, and moved onto his farm, where for many years we had lots of sheep, goats, chickens, a few ponies and cows (fewer pigs). Dogs, cats, briefly a crow, two parrots, big gardens, and two children. When my daughter was about ten I started a book about her life on the farm.

I have taught art to elementary school children and high school and college students, and adults of all ages. I have taught in formal settings, but what I like best is to work in my own studios. For almost twenty years I had a pottery and gallery in the center of my town and besides selling my work I taught children and adults there. After my husband’s death, I moved my gallery and studio and pottery home to the farm and continued working and teaching here. Covid put a halt to most of that, but my life drawing class still meets every week. What I see and do in my life comes out in my art. My connection to the farm, to the land and what grows on it, is what keeps me going.