Raised in rural Nebraska long before art was taught in school, I had done artwork all my life: painting signs for merchants’ windows, artwork for the school newspaper, and for my own pleasure.  I bought oil paints with my first job out of high school and proceeded to teach myself to paint.  For several years I was a young Navy wife, stationed in Monterey, California and Charleston, S.C., Scotland, and Spain.  I was able to take lessons from artists in all those locations, and in 1972 I began selling my work (with encouragement from an artist teacher).

Settling in Albuquerque in 1978, I opened a ceramic business and taught classes.  Before long, I was putting my own artwork on ceramics and it became a wholesale business with 30 employees and accounts in 29 states, and collectors around the world.  I was a successful business woman, but my heart was still with painting.