I was born in Washington, DC, where my earliest awareness was shaped by the value placed on boys over girls. That imbalance gave me my first cause: to advocate for the worth of women. At nine, standing in Rock Creek Park, I whispered that I would be an artist. It was both a promise and a survival tool.

The Beginning

In nature I found my first teachers. Trees and stones offered textures and cycles that became the foundation of my work — a journey from paint to portal. At Brown University and RISD, in Rome and along the Adriatic coast, I discovered how intimately imagination and earth are entwined. Stones I had drawn before appeared in the sea as if the world itself was answering back.

Later, I earned a Master of Science in Communications Design from Pratt Institute, which shaped my teaching and reinforced design as a language of visual communication — a way to connect, inform, and guide. While my art seeks personal expression and transformation, design has given me tools to communicate with clarity and intention.

The Making

In New York, frottage — rubbing paint against bark and stone — became my method and metaphor. Each work was a collaboration with nature, a record of presence and time. As a long-standing member of WEAD, Ecofeminism gave me language for what I already knew: that the feminine, like the earth, is magnetic, open, creative, and resilient. Sculptures like Nine Months and Affinity arose not as solitary acts but as collective expressions of feminine power.

The Recognition

My work has been supported by two Pollock-Krasner Foundation awards and is part of the permanent collection at the California African American Museum. After decades of teaching, I am Professor Emerita at the USC Roski School of Art and Design, where I helped shape new generations of artists.

I am currently developing Womb Works, an ongoing cycle of sculpture, fiber, prints, and video. Rooted in ecofeminist vision, this series reclaims the womb as a sacred vessel of cycles and transformation — a portal of generative power still unfolding.

The Work Today

Today, I describe myself as a sculptor, a teacher, a portal, a witness, and a weaver of feminine power. My work is the passage from survival to sacred, from solitary practice to collective creation. Each sculpture is both vessel and offering — an invitation to enter, to remember, and to step into the cycles of nature and spirit that hold us all.