This is what I have come to believe in my over twenty-five years as a productive artist. I’m ever learning and searching for new ways to better interpret my favorite subject with my favorite media: the human face through charcoal, ink, and acrylics.

I teach portraiture as an Artist in Residence every year to gifted high school seniors. In turn, my students teach me to respect the human face as one of the most difficult subjects to grasp and interpret virtually. I’ve always taken my ability to render faces for granted. My students, all amazingly talented and passionate young artists, through their struggles with traditional portrait rendering and the curve of contemporary portraiture I have thrown at them the last six years, have met the challenges to see with their eyes and their imagination beyond my expectations.

For my own development as an artist, I thank genetics. My father was a gifted artist. I thank my mentor, Artist, John Giannotti, who helped me shape an everlasting need to render a long time ago. I thank my late husband, Hayward Allen, who supported my work and was my most keen critic.

I graduated from art as an avocation to a profession, 25 years ago. Before that, I was an award-winning Executive Producer and on-air host for Wisconsin Public Radio and feature contributor for NPR in Washington. My broadcast awards include a National Gabriel Award for children’s programming; a National Markle Foundation Award for the feature production, “On Track”. My work was in collaboration with Disney Sound producers in San Francisco; three Milwaukee Press Club feature broadcast awards; two Madison Press Club awards for excellence in broadcasting; and United Press International Awards for news production.

I then accepted a position as a Communications Manager for the Wisconsin Division of Tourism. I worked for ten years with a large Advertising Agency to develop the strength of Wisconsin’s second-largest industry. I developed a major, annual tourism industry conference, encouraged banner advertising through liaisons with state convention and visitors bureaus, and worked with national, and state press.

I took on art full-time in 1993. I have shown and sold art through shows and exhibits in Arizona, Corning, New York, and Rochester, New York. Venues have included, Corning Glass Art Show, Memorial Art Gallery’s Clothesline Festival, Sonnenberg Art Festival, and a special invitational show at Rochester’s Artisan Works. I was invited to participate in Rochester’s Young Audience’s Artist in Residence program in 2003. I have contributed to the program for 18 years.

I hold a BA degree In Performing Arts and English from the University of Buffalo.

I have had graduate Fine Art Courses from Arizona State University.