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Sunny southern California before the onslaught of smog: azure blue
skies. “Don’t color on the dining room table! How many
times do I have to tell you??” Reverie broken, crayons, too.
Rescue arrives at Christmas in the form of a card table from Santa
Daddy. Kangaroo jump forward ten years: hanging papers, many colors
running wet, on the clothesline. Mom gone working, unknowing.
Later memories of a high school 3-D class, making an enameled ashtray,
a hammered copper pendant, a soldered wire sculpture. Finally, college.
After a dalliance with majoring in psych, a sculpture professor
encouraging me to focus on dimensional forms. Not for me, a too
limited color palette.
On to marriage, children, many more evening art classes, stuffing
my need to create art around the demanding schedules of three young
children, painting at night and naptime.
Then divorce, disruption. Out of chaos, a new direction: graphic
design to support my family, taking more classes: scientific illustration,
calligraphy, children’s book illustration, design and layout.
Pieced together a business of sorts, then could not face another
customer telling me how to design. So for ten years I owned and
ran an infant-toddler daycare center, a period that my back remembers
to this day. During most of this interlude I focused on music, guitar,
and song writing. Occasionally, I would take a short sabbatical
to watercolor.
Vacation during this period featured closing the daycare for two
weeks, running off with the family to Sea Ranch on the coast of
Northern California. I collected shells. I really wanted to do something
with them besides stick them in boxes. One year at Sea Ranch, my
daughters and I spent hours trying to make ear rings with shells
and beads and thread and purchased jewelry findings, seeking drill
bits that would last more than 5 seconds to make holes in the shells.
The earrings were really pretty pathetic. Then in 1991, 2 blocks
from my home, I found a silversmith teaching private lessons. My
first attempt at metalsmithing was a pair of sterling earrings that
featured some of the shells I had collected. I moved pretty quickly
from using actual shells to forming them out of metal, inventing
serendipitously a coloration process so that these metal forms would
more closely resemble shells. Then I discovered enamel to color
the shapes, and that was it. At long last I found my métier:
3-dimensional forms, and color, color, color. In 1992 I closed my
daycare center to enamel fulltime.
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The design of an enamel piece is its beginning and, in the end,
its definitive statement. I see design and composition as the relationship
of parts to the whole as well as to each other. Every element impinges
on and affects every other element. The result, ideally, is an artwork
wherein every part feels right: it cannot then be imagined any other
way. Changing any element would destroy the completeness of the
total.
• Award of Merit, “6th International Juried
Enamel Exhibition,” Richmond Art Center, 2002.
• Metal Arts Guild Award & Helen Kirschner Award, “California
Works, California State Fair, 2002
• Dorothy Clardy Award for Expertise & Craftmanship , “Color,
Light, and Illusion,” San Diego Enamel Guild Juried Exhibition,
2002
• Third place award, “Arts Alive,” Kennedy-Douglass
Center for the Arts, Florence, AL. 2002
• Dr. John Ryan Award for outstanding enamel work, Award of Merit,
“California Works,” California State Fair, 2001.
• Best of Show, “An Assembly of Artisans 2000,” The
Artists’ Cooperative Gallery of Westerly, Westerly, RI
• The Metal Arts Guild Award and an Award of Merit, “California
Works,” California State Fair, 2000.
• Fourth Award, “Live With This,” ACCI Gallery, Berkeley,
CA, 2000.
• Best Enamel Jewelry Award and Award of Merit, “Enamels –
Out of the Fire,” San Diego Enamel Guild, June, 2000
• June Schwarcz Award for outstanding enamel work; The Helen Kirschner
Memorial Award; 3 Awards of Merit,
“California Works,” California State Fair, 1999.
• Bronze Award and 2 Honorable Mentions, “San Mateo County
Fine Arts Exhibition,” 1999.
• Award of Excellence, 12th Cloisonne Jewelry Contest, The Shippo
Conference, Tokyo, Japan, 1999.
• Honorable Mention, 14th Annual Juried Show, Coastal Arts Museum,
Half Moon Bay, CA, 1998.
• June Schwarcz Award for outstanding enamel work, Award of Merit,
“California Works,” California State Fair, 1998.
• ARTIST of the YEAR; Gold, Bronze, Honorable Mention Awards
– Enameling; Gold & Silver Awards – Tapestry; Sil•er
& 3 Honorable Mention Awards – Jewelry; Honorable Mention
– Works on Paper; Gold Award – Thoroughbred Racehorses;
Academy of Art College Scholarship; San Mateo County Fine Arts Exhibit,
1998.
• Honorable Mention, “Silverhawk Fine Craft Internet Exhibit,
1998.
• Award of Merit, “California Works,” California State
Fair, 1997.
• Honorable Mention, “Marin County Fair,” 1997.
• Gold Award – Enameling; Silver Award & 2 Honorable
Mentions – Jewelry; Honorable Mention – Miniatures, “San
Mateo County Fine Arts Exhibit,” 1997.
• Award of Excellence, American Pearl Company’s “Vision
97” Competition.
• Dorothy Clardy Award for Expertise and Craftsmanship, “New
Directions,” San Diego Enamel Guild Juried Exhibition, 1997.
• June Schwarcz Award for outstanding enamel work, Award of Merit,
“California Works,” California State Fair, 1996.
• Sil•er and Bronze Awards for Jewelry, “San Mateo County Fine
Arts Exhibit,” 1996.
• 1st runner-up Best in Show and Honorable Mention, “Glass
on Metal,” Coastal Arts Museum, 1996.
• Two Gold Awards, one for enameling, one for jewelry, “San
Mateo Fine Arts Exhibit,” 1995.
• Honorable Mention, “11th Annual Juried Show,” Coastal
Arts Museum, 1995.
• Kay Hall Award for expertise in jewelry, “Enamels Southwest,”
1995.
• Merit Award, “19th Biennial National Juried Art Exhibition,”
Second Crossing Gallery, 1995.
• Honorable Mention, “1995 Open Sculpture and Crafts Exhibit,”
Marin Society of Artists.
• Special Recognition Award, “Newport Beach Fall Open Art Competition,”
1994.
• Honorable Mention, “10th Annual Juried Show,” Coastal
Arts Museum, 1994.
• Third place for sculpture and mixed media, “1994 Open Fine
Arts Exhibition,” Marin Society of Artists.
• Makens Award for Silversmithing, “1994 Open Sculpture
and Crafts Exhibition,” Marin Sociey of Artists.
• “From There to Here,” Coastal Arts Museum, Half
Moon Bay, CA. November 21- December 31, 1997.
• “Wings Learning How to Crawl,” Coastal Arts Museum,
Half Moon Bay, CA. September 21 –
October 23,1995.
• Participated in ~100 juried shows from 1994-2002.
• “Opening Exhibition.” The Jewelry Gallery, Mendocino,
CA. 2002
• “Studio 5 Invitational,” San Diego Enamel Guild,
San Diego, CA. 1998.
• “Invitational Jewelry Show,” Trios Gallery, Solana
Beach, Ca. 1996.
• “Images,” El Sueno Gallery, Bodega, CA. 1996
• “Fata Morgana,” Palo Alto Medical Center, Palo Alto,
CA. 1996.
• “Group Show,” El Sueno Gallery, Bodega, CA. 1995.
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