I grew up all around art. Many times I would stop and watch my mother draw and paint. Often she would tell me of her art school days and her joys of painting and drawing. I never realized how all of this would affect me many years later. Mother died suddenly in 1996 and I thought the art I had known was over. Four years later I began to draw. Awkward at first, the graphite works grew as my eye became more trained, and slowly themes of living on the Florida coastline emerged; shrimp boats, fisherman, oyster shells, driftwood, and seascapes. I moved to Little Rock after the devastating hurricanes of 2004-2005 and began the Master's Degree program in Studio Art at UALR. As my classes and experiences at UALR grew so did my use of mediums and themes. A study of Rembrandt's washes produced brown ink works of people and landscapes. A study of contemporary artists produced expressionist ink and pastel works.