When I started painting, I found myself drawn to styles, imagery and colors that surrounded me growing up. My father’s eclectic collection of contemporary art, Japanese woodblock prints and abstract lithographs. Marimekko fabrics. Works in New York museums. I’ve always been an appreciative aesthete.

I used to be in the business of creating, first as a graphic designer, then as a project and account manager of strategic brand design. Being part of the creative process in my professional life was very satisfying. At a career juncture, I joined the West Seattle Art Walk as a coordinator, to engage more deeply in my community. The experience was transformative: inspired by the participating artists, their stories and their work, I gave myself permission to explore abstract art. I now love the act of expressing my visual inspiration as my own. It’s like I’m speaking a shared language or sitting at the table with artists that came before me – and that now work alongside me.

As an intuitive printmaker, I identify most with the concept of duality in my work. Constraints and freedom. Depths and surfaces. Structure and looseness. This dynamic represents the richness and complexity of who I am as an artist and a person. I grow from exercising the duality, extending my own boundaries, leaping forward.