I was born in Los Angeles and grew up in Norwalk.  I have always loved to draw and seen myself as an artist, but I steered clear of art classes in high school because I listened to the message that you can’t make a living doing art. After graduating from high school I attended Rio Hondo College where I took my first painting class. That’s when I decided to make art every day for the rest of my life.

I enrolled in Jerry Romotsky’s Advanced Painting Class.  Romotsky encouraged his students to find beauty in their surroundings and daily lives, and to look to the great painters of art history for inspiration.  It was in Romotsky’s class that I developed my colorful plein-air style that blended the gritty subject matter of the Ashcan School with the magical realism of the Mexican muralists.

In addition to painting and regularly exhibiting my landscapes, I have painted more than thirty murals for the walls of schools, businesses, and homes in many Southern California cities.

I decided to go to Whittier College and earn my bachelor’s degree twenty years after taking that painting class at Rio Hondo.  In the meantime, I worked at such jobs as Greyhound bus driver, beach maintenance worker, road laborer, and children’s art consultant. It was the art consultant job that got me excited about teaching art in the schools. I realized I had a talent for both making and teaching art. In addition, I loved bringing art to the public school classroom.

I received my Master of Fine Arts Degree in Studio Art in 2006 from California State University, Long Beach.  In addition, I participate in workshops and classes at Rio Hondo College on an ongoing basis to work on both my art technique and to learn more effective practices of art instruction.  One of the classes I recently took was Advanced Life Drawing. I was very impressed with Professor Ada Brown’s approach to portrait and gesture drawing and have modified it to teach drawing to fifth graders.  I especially appreciated her assignments that involved drawing on the right side of the brain, which I have used with my students.  I also use a surrealistic assignment that she used, called the exquisite corpse in my classroom art instruction.

My arts program is not confined to my classroom alone.  I have made arrangements with my colleagues that enable me to teach art as a discreet subject to all four fifth grade classes on a rotating schedule for one hour a day. In my district, this arrangement is unique to Longfellow School. Because of this, all fifth grade Longfellow students have the opportunity to learn basic techniques while using a wide range of mediums to express their artistic abilities.  The lessons include instruction in one-point perspective, portrait and gesture drawing, watercolor painting, and ceramic sculpture. Furthermore, students are encouraged to think differently during arts instruction and to trust their instincts and abilities, two traits that I think are often overlooked in traditional classroom instruction. 

I am currently working at Longfellow School in Whittier where I am in my eighteenth year of teaching. My class is working on an art contest with the City of Whittier. The students are designing banners to hang in the streets and neighborhoods that reflect, “The Language of Whittier”. Last year, we had eighteen winners in the contest. I expect more this time around. We are also working on a ceramic sculpture project and are exploring ways to integrate astronomy and art. My classroom looks like an art gallery. My students like school because it’s fun and they “get to do art”.

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