Squirreled Away (Big Money series, Crown Hill)

graphite, crayon on rice paper, 40 L x 20 W in, 2025

Money, death, and time are embedded in this collage of cemetery headstone images embellished with smaller motifs from porcelain and embossed glass. The squirrels are simultaneously innocent forest creatures emblematic of nature as well as stand-ins for busy human beings hoarding acorns and accumulating wealth.

My practice has evolved from language (MFA in poetry) to visual media over 30+ years. Curiosity and wonder are my constant companions as I explore nature in both wilderness and urban settings. Metaphor is a two-edged sword, bringing me closer to the 'thing in itself,' but also distancing. The "Big Money" series evolved from rubbings of petroglyphs to gravestones, collaging visual symbols together from multiple sources at a single site.

After finishing PhD and MFA degrees (U of Washington), I taught in Poland and Hungary on several Fulbright grants before joining Cornish College of the Arts from 1999 – 2006. When my kids were old enough, I rejoined the workforce as a curator at Museum of Glass and City of Shoreline Public Art. My poems have appeared in Verse, Ploughshares, The Iowa Review, New Orleans Review and others, while Bellevue Arts Museum, CoCA, Anne Focke Gallery (Seattle), Vashon Center for the Arts (in Kelly Lyles’ show ‘Like Mother,’) and others featured my visual work. I currently serve as Co-president & Curatorial Director for CoCA.