Born in Wichita, Kansas in 1954 and raised in Ponca City, Oklahoma, she attended Chickasha, a liberal arts college, and then Central State University in Edmond, Oklahoma where she studied art. She took three years of private lessons from Richard Goetz, well known Oklahoma figure and still life painter, and he and his wife Edith, former New Yorkers, encouraged her to go to the Art Students League in New York. She took their advice and remained in the city for 15 years. She attended the Art Students League for two and a half years and there was a student of David Leffel with whom she developed a strong personal relationship. For her the time in New York was highly productive. She returned to the League to teach drawing and figure painting, found gallery representation, and matured in her own style.
But she tired of the hassles of the city and moved in 1992 to Taos, New Mexico, where her studio, formerly that of John Young-Hunter, has stunning views of the foothills and Sangre de Cristo Mountains. She has also taught in Taos at the Fechin Institute. She is known for her precise still lifes, and her style, like Leffel’s, is strong light on a single object with dark backgrounds.
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