Growing up in Detroit, I remember always doing something creative with clay (or Play-Doh), paint, pencils and crayons. I'd spend hours drawing cartoon's of my dog Spike or practicing character styles referencing my "How to Draw" books. During Jr. and high school, I took all available art classes and was accepted into a commercial art class in 11th grade. I did well in that class but didn't love the whole idea of graphic design... yet.

After graduating high school, I attended a local community college taking a few art and English classes and after 3 semesters, I hired on full time at an automotive "job shop" (as they called them) for General Motors, working on technical manuals and drawing various parts/sections of cars. Not very exciting, but I did perfect my technical skills as an illustrator and I was making decent money for someone at 19.

After about 5 years, I was given the opportunity to work on an Apple computer the company bought after they realized, they needed to move from hand drawn technical pages to digital. I worked on the very first versions of Adobe's Illustrator and Photoshop! I loved working on the computer creating illustrations and page layouts! Sometimes my boss would have to remind me it was time to go home.

Speeding forward, after 14 years total working in the Automotive industry, my husband and I (oh yeah,I got married) moved to Santa Cruz CA. I was hired by a small design firm to help out with illustrations and answer phones. First they gave me small projects but after some successful projects, I became 100% involved with all the projects that came in. We were a great team and I learned so much about design, printing and running a small design business. After a few years and the owners adding children to their families, they decided to close shop and I started on my own business. It took me about 5 years to build up a solid business and now after 16... 17 years???? I'm quite busy working with a great mix of clients.

My goals are to always keep learning and perfecting my design and illustrative skills!

Kudos:

2011 - My Googled image is the latest cover for Healthcare Quarterly.
2010 - Featured in "How to do everything Illustrator" CS4 manual
by author Sue Jenkins.
2010 - NAPP, Editors choice award for photography.
2009 - 3 logos published in Logo lounge "Animals".
2008, 2009 - "Best of People"Good times runner up for Visual Artist.
2008 - Designing Women Winner, D&G magazine.
2008 - Just Creative Design.com "7 Female Graphic Designers That'll
Rock Your Socks Off"
2007 - Solo show, Hide Gallery, Santa Cruz CA
2006 - Carmel Magazine, TomatoFest poster art.
2006 - Sunset Magazine, mention of my art studio.
2006 - Group Show, Thatcher Gallery San Francisco, CA
2006 - Painting published in "Marilyn in Art" by Roger Taylor
2005 - Detroit Weekly article about my irreverent nun paintings.
2005 - San Francisco chronicle, mention of my art.
2005 - Catholic league anti-catholic list for my irreverent nun paintings.
2005 - Gail Rich Award for visual artist- Santa Cruz CA
2003 & 2005 Santa Cruz Sentinel feature.

A FEW EXTRA FACTS:
Born Detroit, MI 10-1-1964
I have a twin sister named Janice who's also artistic.
No children unless my two cats count.
Married to my husband Wes for 19 years.
Father was a Precision Grinder and mom, a self employed house keeper.