The artist at work

How long have you been an artist? Were you interested as a child or did you become interested later in life?

I have been working as a full-time artist for the past 13 years. In a broader sense, I have been an artist since I was a child. It was always a main focus of my life. In high school I took extra art classes instead of study halls, and art was my major in college.

The Dream of the Star

Why do you do watercolors?

I have always felt an affinity for watercolor which was enhanced in college. I got a lot of encouragement from my watercolor professor in Tucson, Arizona, and have continued to work in it since then. I also like that it is a relatively benign medium, health-wise, as we well know this is an important factor.

The Sacred Sisters

Sunflower

Dawn on a sunny day at
Madison's Art Fair Off the Square

Peace Tree
Note: This has been reproduced
as a note card and is included in
our Youth Scholarship Note Card
Collection.
Click here to learn more.

Sky Woman

Describe your technique.
I use a very controlled watercolor style. First, I work out my sketches until I have a finished drawing of each element of the composition. Then I transfer that image from tracing paper to the watercolor paper. This helps to minimize the erasures I need to make on the paper which affects how it takes the watercolor. I generally work from the lighter areas to the darker, wetting the paper near the edges of each area, laying the color onto dry paper that bleeds into the wet area, keeping the area soft and the color flowing. Some of my colors I mix on the palette while others are created by layering glazes of color, letting each layer dry completely before the next is added. My images come from my own Oneida Indian heritage. I use traditional Iroquois beadwork patterns as an inspiration for much of my design. The subject matter is taken from American Indian (especially Woodland) stories, traditions, and art. If you couldn't be an artist, what other profession would interest you?
If I couldn't be an artist, I think I would like to have been an archeologist and/or a writer.What do you like least about being an artist? Most?
The part of my work I like the least is equally shared by the paperwork and record-keeping and matting and framing. Well, gee, there are so many things. No, I think the part I hate the most is setting up and taking down art shows and dealing with the elements. If your art were a food, what would it be and why?
If my art were a food, I think it would be strawberries, light, fresh, and making you feel good by consuming it. (Besides, strawberries are my favorite food)Any biographical information such as age, married, children, interesting facts, awards.
I am 46 and have been married to my husband, Keith, for almost 22 years. We have two great kids, a daughter, Erin, studying art history at the University of Wisconsin, and a son, Greg, a junior in high school who is interested in space and astrophysics.I have been fortunate to have received awards and honors for my work, including a fellowship from the Southwest Association for Indian Arts (Santa Fe, New Mexico, Indian Market) in 1999 and a First Place and Best of Division in painting, drawing and prints at the Eiteljorg Museum Indian Market in Indianapolis, Indiana, in 1998. My work has been on numerous posters including the Indian Summer Festival in Milwaukee and the United States Department of Agriculture's American Indian Heritage poster for November 2000. My family belongs to the Turtle Clan of the Oneida nation and I put a turtle in all of my work (sometimes small, sometimes large, but always present.)