I grew up in a house filled with art and science. Although my parents were both working scientists, they also loved the arts and wanted to pass this appreciation on to their children. They assembled an extensive library of books on sculpture, painting and drawing. I spent hours looking at art books and making sketches of my favorite paintings and sculpture. As I was growing up, my interest in art was encouraged and supported by my parents in many interesting ways. They started going to Sotheby art auctions when I was quite young. I remember them pouring over catalogues filled with pictures of the work of famous artists. I remember how much fun they had placing bids on Toulouse Latrec prints and lithographs. Later I remember how excited they were bidding on work by Degas, Mattisse, Picasso, and even Rembrandt. For a little girl who had virtually no real interest in chemistry or biology, I was aware of how lucky I was that my parents cared so much about beauty and culture.

When I was ten, we moved to Switzerland to live for a year while my father taught at the University of Zurich. We went on trips to many of the great museums of Europe. I saw and was fascinated by some of the world's most famous statues and monuments in Rome and Florence. I remember being so impressed by the Sistine Chapel and Michelangelo's sculptures of The Pieta and David. One of the most important moments in my life took place in Paris when my parents took all three children to the Louvre Museum. I wandered away dazzled by gallery after gallery of art masterpieces. Suddenly the hall I had been walking through opened up into a huge room with vaulted ceilings and a broad staircase at one end. There on a balcony half way up the stairs stood the most moving and beautiful statue I had ever seen. A towering figure of a powerful and beautiful woman's body with soaring wings rose in marble. To this day the majesty and power of that female figure, "Winged Victory," rising above the sculpture in the room below, inspires me. After seeing all these great masterpieces, I decided I would become a figurative artist when I grew up. I thought if I worked really hard that I would be able to bring joy and beauty to everyone in the world through being an artist.

When we returned from Europe, I decided to open up a little art school in my parent's basement. I thought I could teach the kids in the neighborhood something about the beautiful art I had seen in Europe. I taught them about perspective, portraits, and how to sculpt a simple figure. We were using homemade clay that I had concocted out of flour, water, salt, and coffee (for color). My parents decided it was time to get me some real clay and a kiln so I could preserve the little sculptures I was making. I wanted to make classical figurine studies, but worried about what people would think if I made sculptures with no clothes, so I put bathing suits on most of the figures. I also started doing paintings and drawings of people in bathing suits.

By the time I was twelve I decided to try drawing my first nudes. For models I used illustrations from old magazines I found in our basement. These were the first pictures I had ever seen of glamorous women in sexy poses and humorous settings. Work by the male artists Vargas, Elvgren, De Vorss and many others appeared before my eyes on the covers of magazines with strange, exotic titles like "Flirt," "Whisper," "Wink," and "Movie Humor". I was so excited to discover that there was also a woman artist named Zoe Mozert drawing the same covers. Inspired by both the beauty of the classical figures I had seen in Europe and the glamour and comedy work of these illustrators, I assembled about 12 drawings and brought them to school. Much to my surprise, I became an overnight sensation, especially with the boys in my class. Boys were offering to buy the drawings or to do my homework for me in exchange for a drawing. My fame was short lived once the geography teacher caught wind of what was going on and quickly put an end to my budding commercial art career. I went back to putting bathing suits on all my figures.

Around this same time I found myself making small characateurs of my friends, family, and relatives. Perhaps inspired by my short-lived career as an illustrator of funny, glamorous women, I sculpted my grandmother in a bikini and my grandfather in a loud Hawaiian shirt. I still have a small Santa Claus soaking his aching feet in a bucket of ice water reading Playboy magazine after a long night delivering presents.

When I graduated from high school and other kids were getting very traditional presents, my parents gave me an original Toulouse Latrec lithograph. Latrec's fascination with female figures in interesting and alluring settings was right up my alley. My parents had long since given up on the hope of having another scientist in the family and wholeheartedly supported my desire to go art school. I enrolled at Boston University where I received an excellent classical education in figurative art. My only problem was that the professors wanted me to switch from sculpture to painting because they felt that it was too hard for a woman to make a living as a sculptor. I persevered though and graduated with honors. I went on to the University of Illinois for my Master of Fine Art Degree in figurative sculpture. While there I studied with Frank Gallo, a well known sculptor, who was one of the earliest American artists to use resin as a fine art material. I was attracted to working with him because of the sensuality and beauty of the figures he was creating. His pieces had an "old ivory" look to them and the combination of the material he used and the subject matter of his work convinced me that this was the place for me to complete my education as an artist.

As a teacher, Gallo encouraged his students to investigate their own artistic vision and talent for two years. For the first time I followed my own interests and ideas with total freedom. My work became more and more a process of exploring the natural beauty of the human figure. I worked almost exclusively in epoxy resin with added oil pigment. I would sculpt the original work in water or oil clay and then make a mold from the original. This mold making process destroys the original clay. Next I would pour plaster into the mold creating a duplicate of the sculpture which I could then use to make fine detail changes before making one last mold from which the final resin sculpture was cast. The finishing stages involved hand sanding the resin surfaces to achieve the right texture and luminosity and then hand painting small areas of the figure.

At the end my graduate studies, I had completed enough work to have a one-woman show in a major gallery in Chicago. The owner of the gallery was excited about my work and invited the curator of the Smithsonian Institution's Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, DC to come and see the show. The museum ended up purchasing a piece of mine called "Girl On a Fainting Couch" for their permanent collection. At that time I was the one of the youngest sculptors ever collected by the Hirshhorn. The museum ended up making a postcard from the sculpture and for years it was one of the best selling items in the museum's gift shop.

I have been so lucky in my life. Ever since that one-woman show in Chicago, I have been able to spend all my time as an artist working in both fine and commercial art. My sculptures, figurines, and dolls are in the homes of art collectors all over the world. I take great joy and meaning from knowing that my work brings happiness to others. My sculpture has continued to be realistic and figurative and I have continued to work with aged ivory and soft flesh tones in bonded marble resin. The work I do continues to be the core around which I live my life. I look forward to seeing where my work will lead me in the future and I look forward to sharing my work with more and more people.