Growing up in the Hudson River Valley of New York State meant being exposed to the outdoors from a very young age. My backyard was the rounded peaks and shaded valleys of the Shawangunk Ridge among the mighty Appalachian Mountains. The forests, rivers, streams, and lakes of New York were the sites for some of my happiest memories.

The love of nature that my home fostered in me, combined with an insatiable hunger for books and a mind overflowing with fantasy and creativity, has cultivated a rich imagination and a love of world-building and storytelling. So, through creative writing and making art, I discovered I could channel that energy into something productive that I can put out into the world.

In addition to the creativity and imagination I like to employ, I’ve always loved working with my hands and feeling my body interacting with the soul of the work I am creating. And so I prefer projects that I can really show my hand in the process and the final product. Printmaking has scratched this itch substantially as a very traditional and historical discipline. From carving relief blocks, to setting type on Letterpress, or drawing and etching a Lithography stone, most of the printmaking work I do is not reliant on digital tools. Most, if not all of these processes are done by hand. Which is also why I love learning so many different media for crafting pieces, from printmaking, to bookmaking, papermaking, sewing, basketry, knitting, and dyeing.

I would consider myself an artisan first, and a fine artist second. In that same vein, one of my biggest inspirations is the works of the Arts & Crafts movement of the mid 19th century, and most notably, the work of William Morris. The ideas of using nature as inspiration and surrounding oneself with beautiful, hand-crafted objects and decor that honor the materials and craftsmanship that went into it is extremely inspiring. In a world ripe with corporate greed leading to senseless consumerism and a reliance on fast, cheaply-made goods, people need to see that a better world is possible; one in which humanity works with nature to live meaningful lives instead of destroying it just to make a profit. That idea is the heart and soul of my work.