I love the accessibility of collage. This is why I teach – no preconceived notions, no “I can’t draw/I can’t paint” excuses. The materials lead the process. My vintage materials lead to narratives and my abstract work focuses on color, composition, and movement.

With a background in live theatre, I love the ephemeral aspect of vintage collage materials. Two main influences from the theatre world continue to guide my work in collage. First, there is the ephemeral aspect of a theatre experience. Each performance is different and will never be duplicated exactly ever again. Second is the collaborative nature of the theatre, where artists with a range of skill-sets come together to enhance and strengthen each other’s work. The audience is collaborator, too, often heightening the experience and informing the transient nature of the art. When I discovered collage, the ephemeral papers, the layers, the beauty in collaborating with the original source material, all grabbed my heart. When I discovered encaustic a few years ago, I thought I'd just like to enhance my collage work a bit. Little did I know that the qualities of encaustic wax would take over a great deal of my artwork and experimentation.

I love layers. In theatre, it was layers of storytelling, along with lights, costumes, set design, and often music. In collage, it is layers of precious papers. Add to the papers, the luminosity and wonderful textures that can be achieved in encaustic work, and I feel like I will never run out of creative inspiration.