I grew up in Royal Oak, Michigan, and from my earliest days have loved animals, nature, art, and...fun. Always the adventurer, I packed up and moved to Arizona as a young adult, completing my education at Arizona State University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree.

After spending many years as a photographer in the advertising and commercial field, I have, in more recent years, focused my attention on nature photography and artistic renderings.

Nature photography is my first love, not only because wildlife is beautiful and varied with color, pattern and texture, but because of the awesome presence I feel while immersed in it. Scanning with my eyes, breathing in the odors of earth and air, listening to bird and animal sounds and the rustling of leaves I wait with an excited calm. I remain very still and alert with a quiet mind. It's a feeling of aliveness, as alive as the environment surrounding me. The concerns of daily life melt away as I am totally present in the moment. The payoff, the real gift, is to experience and capture an intimate view of nature and wildlife as it goes about the business of living: procreating, rearing young and finding food. Magnificent!

What a privilege it is to observe a pair of black-necked stilt tending to their clutch as a bobcat creeps through the tall reeds looking for a meal. What a thrill to watch a grizzly bear forage for food only feet from my car. While my heart pounds in my chest, I calmly capture their images. These and other experiences are precious and priceless to me.

When I return to my studio, it is an added blessing to draw or paint the subjects from my images as I relive the experience and in my small way pay homage to the beauty they possess. With pencil or brush in hand, I am able to compose and express not only those images that were captured on film, but also a montage of the scene... My imagination comes into play as I create compelling wildlife and nature likenesses: usually with colored pencil, more recently acrylic on canvas and sometimes in watercolor or oils.

I also find myself fascinated by the unique roots and culture of America's West, and have portrayed an array of its characters in my art, mostly oil on canvas images of Indians and cowboys - at work and at play.

I have a whimsical collection of art subjects: cats dressed in finery playing musical instruments, fairies perched on lily pads, children exploring the world with a magnifying glass or blowing bubbles. As for photography: portraits, and weddings and graduation sittings. The list goes on.

Together with my husband Wayne, I live a blessed life in Scottsdale, Arizona, where our backyard is host to a variety of desert wildlife, subjects of my artistic endeavors including bobcat, coyote and Gambles' quail, as well as an occasional rattle snake.