What’s Behind the Work
Turn Your Face to the Sun and She is a Moon Flower Blossoming in the Night
4’ by 6”, Acrylic on Wood, Stanford University Lucile Packards Children Hospital Lobby
A New Canvas
When our children left for college and we moved from Maryland to California, I returned to painting. I didn't start small. After a brief period of exploring with markers, pen, and paper, I found myself standing in front of two 4-by-6-foot canvases, discovering a new way to express everything I had experienced over the years.
Those paintings marked more than a return to art. They became the beginning of a new chapter, where creativity, intuition, and everything I had learned about people, nature, and the power of creating meaningful spaces came together on canvas.
Today, those first two large paintings hang in the lobby of Stanford University's Lucile Packard Children's Hospital. They also revealed something that continues to guide my work today—a desire to create art for hospitals, healing environments, and spaces where creativity can offer hope, presence, and connection.
Early morning hike and rainbow in Palo Alto. Wonder has a way of interrupting the ordinary!
Learning to See Differently
Some of the most important lessons of my life were never taught in a classroom. They emerged through time spent with horses, in nature, out hiking, and through years of exploring the deeper intelligence, interconnectedness, and unseen patterns that quietly shape our lives.
Jin Shin Jyutsu, equine massage, and intuitive energy work all shaped the way I began to understand the subtle language of connection, presence, and awareness.
Through those experiences, I began to understand that not everything is as it appears. I discovered a world where healing wasn't always linear, where nature and energy revealed a deeper intelligence, and where what was unseen often held as much significance as what was visible. Those experiences changed the way I see people, the world around me, and ultimately, the way I create.
Creating Spaces
Those experiences changed the way I see people, the world around me, and ultimately, the way I create.
They also showed me how important it is to create spaces where people feel trusted, supported, and free to be themselves.
Over the years, two of the most significant spaces I created were Freedom School, an alternative school, and Personal Ponies, a national nonprofit I led that bred UK Shetland ponies as companions for children with special needs.
That same desire to create space for confidence, connection, creativity, and possibility is still at the heart of what I do today.
I founded Freedom School as an alternative K–12 program inspired by the Sudbury model of self-directed learning. More than an educational philosophy, it became a place where curiosity replaced curriculum, trust replaced control, and children were free to follow their passions while discovering the responsibility that comes with freedom.
Personal Ponies became a way to weave service into our everyday lives. I first became involved through a local chapter and eventually served as National Director, helping grow a program with more than 500 UK Shetland ponies and chapters across the United States and Canada. The ponies were bred as companions for children with special needs, but what grew around them was just as meaningful — families, volunteers, and communities connecting through compassion, contribution, and a shared sense of purpose.
The Story Continues
These days, I’m still following many of the same things that have shaped my life—freedom, curiosity, creativity, and the pull toward something more expansive. California has given me space to wander, hike, explore, and keep discovering what opens something in me.
My painting is part of that, but so are the experiences I create, the people I meet, the places I go, and the ideas I find myself following. I’m less interested in knowing exactly where it all leads than in staying open to what wants to unfold next.