About

Photo by David Perlman

My mother told me that when I was a little girl I told her that I was going to be an artist until I was 35 years old, and then be a writer. I don’t remember telling her this, but its kind of what happened. And happily, becoming a writer didn’t preclude being an artist! I have written and illustrated several books for both kids and adults, and am represented by Anna Olswanger at Olswanger Literary LLC. I have illustrated three paper toy sets for Pomegranate Publishing, including the NEW FAIRY HOUSE: A Color, Punch Out and Play Set, MUSEUM VISIT: A Color, Punch Out and Play Set, and TEA PARTY: A Color, Punch Out and Play Set. My first coloring book, Let’s Color Together: A Shareable Coloring Book for Parents and Kids came out this spring from Sourcebooks, and was  followed by a “sequel,” Let’s Color Together: SECRET WORLDS: A Shareable Coloring Book for Parents and Kids. Other titles include Stencil Craft: Techniques for Art, Fashion and Home (F&W), Crow Made a Friend (Holiday House) an early reader picture book and finalist in the 2016 Ohioana Awards for juvenile literature. Inkblot: Drip, Splat and Squish Your Way to Creativity (Boyds Mills 2011) was awarded a Eureka! Silver Medal for non-fiction children’s books. Also, The Successful Artist’s Career Guide: Finding Your Way in the Business of Art (F&W 2012) is used in high school and college counseling offices to guide people who want to have a career as an artist. Alternative Art Journals: Explore Innovative Approaches to Collecting Your Creativity (F&W 2012), and Make Your Mark: Explore Your Creativity and Discover Your Inner Artist (Chronicle Books, 2004), voted one of Library Journal’s best how-to books of 2004.

I have had the great good fortune to be able to support my drawing and writing activities over the past 20+ years by painting and dying costumes for the theater at Parsons-Meares, LTD. The theater has been a generous benefactor, and I am grateful every day for the chance to collaborate with such fantastic artists and artisans. I have painted on a hundred projects, certainly (find a list of highlights below), including Broadway shows such as Aladdin, The Lion King, Wicked, Turn Off the Dark, Will Rogers Follies, Shrek the Musical, Phantom of the Opera, Mary Poppins, dance American Ballet Theater’s Peter and the Wolf, Joffrey Ballet’s Cotillon, Pilobolus, Feld Ballet’s Evo and Paper Tiger, Nevada Ballet and San Francisco Ballet’s Nutcrackers, the film Bram Stoker’s Dracula, as well as for circuses, arena shows and ice shows. I am a proud and long-time member of United Scenic Artists, local 829.
I teach costume painting (NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, University of North Carolina, Brigham Young University, USITT-SE), and present lectures on making a living as an artist (The Self Employment in the Arts 2013 conference in Chicago, The Love Your Library series at FIT, Miami University in Ohio, BYU, UNC). I present art workshops (Inkblots, Invisible Ink, Stencils, other) with cancer survivors, elders, children, parent and teen groups, writers, nurses and caregivers, at The Creative Center at University Settlement’s Creative Aging conferences, and their Artist-in-Residence Training program, with EngAGE Utah, at Gilda’s Club, The Huntsman Cancer Institute, Operation Exodus in NYC, and at Miami University’s Scripps center with Dr. Like Lokon, and Opening Minds Through Art, and the Art Lab at Mount Sinai Hospital with Robin Glazer at The Creative Center.

I attended Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, and studied with Alex McKibben, Rocio Rodriguez, Lon Beck, Thomas Effler, Geoff Fishburn, Michael Griffiths, and Crossan Curry. I am pleased and honored to be serving on the first College of Creative Arts Advisory Board at Miami.

Click here for a list of shows I’ve worked on!