MFA, University of Washington
BFA, University of Washington
Para Educator Certificate, Skagit Valley College
Pratt Fine Arts Center, Printmaking
Gage Academy of Fine Arts, Painting and Drawing
School of Visual Concepts, Illustration and Painting
Cornish College of the Arts, Graphic Design and Fine Art

• BIS 121 Intro to Drawing (Drawing as Research)
• B ART 191 Art in Public Space
• BISIA 240 Drawing as Process
• BISIA 340 Figure Drawing: the Gaze, Body Politics, and the Embodied Experience
• B IMD 351 Sketching Primer (one week module)
• BISIA 374 Public Art and Social Change
• BISIA 483 Arts of Social Transformation, a mixed enrollment course of students from all 3 UW campuses and prisoners incarcerated at the Monroe Correctional Center. Class held at the prison weekly.
• BCORE 104: The Natural World at the Intersection of Art and Science, co-taught with Professor Salwa Al-Noori (School of STEM)

In the classroom I strive to foster curiosity surrounding the arts and their vast potential benefits and rewards. I encourage experimentation, nurture individuality and stress that what we often view as failures carry far more valuable and productive lessons than our perceived successes. The questions we explore, rather than the artifacts we create or the aesthetics we often chase, are what propel meaningful creative research and result in sustainable, enduring creative practices.

I highlight the importance of research by immersing students in open-ended interdisciplinary projects designed to develop nonlinear problem-solving and critical thinking skills. This work requires navigating the ambiguity inherent in the creative process. Extending the emersion in ambiguity builds creative confidence leading to a more robust practice and more authentic work. Throughout this process I encourage students to draw from their often dismissed rich personal histories, which are one of the most valuable resources at the artists disposal.

I integrate reflection early in all courses to explore reason and intention and to provide language to the more subconscious creative process as a means of understanding and propelling it forward. Reflection enables the integration of theory, art history, social and cultural values, with curiosity and intuition. Giving language to our creative impulses clarifies our curiosities clearing the path for new input (experiences, playful discoveries, personal awarenesses) and inciting further research.
I value a strong connection between my studio practice and teaching. It challenges me to remain open to new ideas in both practices, keeps me engaged in the process of learning, and enthused about the creative, social and cultural reciprocity inherent in the classroom.

The arts are introspective but also carry significant potential to initiate healthy dialogue between seemingly disparate communities which is central in many of my community engaged courses. The arts remove considerable tension from craft (perfectionism, judgement, skill) and act as a mediary between participants when exploring complex social barriers. Unspoken tensions present in these projects are negotiated through the use of another language, the arts, shifting misconceptions and challenging deeply held biases. The shared creative outcome and explorations through creative production and guided dialogue builds bridges, providing participants with new tools to inform their social awareness and engagement.

Highlighting common language and beliefs is particularly beneficial when interacting with communities of complex social identities such as the unhoused and imprisoned. The arts encourage empathy and social engagement that broadens students’ understanding of both the arts and culture and facilitates robust conversations into complicated, often contentious terrain.

My interdisciplinary research intersects society, the sciences and spiritually. Led by intuition, my work explores things that lie just beyond our collective understanding. Artists are adept at pattern recognition and when anomalies arise, we are seduced into research –often in tandem with our peers from a host of other fields. The questions and inklings that emerge out of these explorations and the subsequent cross disciplinary exchanges are what propel my practice. I explore this research through any medium that seems appropriate to a particular inquiry generally beginning with drawing and extend into painting, printmaking, photography, collage, sculpture.

I utilize a variety of forms of research including philosophy, environmental sciences, poetry, spirituality, and over the past decade, the intersection of quantum physics and consciousness. The research brings clarity to some ideas and exposes misconceptions about others revealing new paths to delve into. Over time patterns emerge among my explorations bringing further clarity that either catapults deeper research or that germinate for weeks, months or even years. Many of those germinations often take root and crop up in more current research fueling my process.

Reflection is a critical cornerstone of my practice. It brings clarity, refines ideas, and creates an underlying thread that connects ideas across the decades. It melds the subconscious with logic while pushing against social constructs. It sheds light on weak ideas yet reveal ethereal inklings that may become monumental truths in other paths.