Connect What is your favorite type of art to create?

Expressive Figurative Abstract Portrait Painting. I was a museum studies major. But I fell in love with the deeper meaning. I wanted to be inside the canvas. I feel compelled to paint. I started painting abstracts and studied daily until I learned portraits. Then I went back to the beginning with the addition of expression in my work. My focus is on the internal beauty of women, not exterior, Women as the emotional beings that we are: imperfect, colorful, sad, intellectual, and beautiful.

Where do you find inspiration?

I’m find inspiration everywhere! In the people I know and love, and people I meet daily, photographs, movies, nature and in my own emotional journey. It can be a pose or a look. My artist eye is always open for new ideas. I draw from artists past and present. It’s funny, when I walk into a museum, I feel butterflies in my stomach and like I’m walking into my own personal church. I feel surrounded by the love of my mentors and never cease to leave a museum inspired to create something new!

What would you do with $25,000?

That is a loaded question! At this point in my life, I am a disabled artist. It would help me and my family. And when I say family, I mean, my husband who has taken care of me, disabled and elderly friends and family, the needy in my community, and the 8 rescue animals that I love and care for. Helping others and animals is dear to my heart. I’ve always tried to do what I can with what I have but it’s never enough and that would help tremendously.