Most of my life experiences and careers have led me to the calling of an Art Educator. 

In kindergarten, I made a 3D daisy out of clay. Due to my teacher’s suggestion, my mother enrolled me in pottery classes at the local arts center. I already loved art, but this gave me validation. Once a week for years, I would go to The Kirkland Arts Center and enjoy making pottery. I love creating with my hands. 

On the first day of high school, my art teacher talked about how he had a learning disability and had struggled in school. It felt like he was describing me. It was another marker in my life because I knew he was a successful artist and art teacher. I enjoyed three years of painting, drawing, and photography with Mr. Van Troba at Lake Washington High School and graduated from high school with honors in art. 

I applied and was accepted to The University of Oregon, School of Architecture and Allied Arts. I signed up for ceramics and drawing my first quarter. Heaven. I experimented with several art forms while I was there, drawing, watercolor, ceramics, design, woodworking, welding, bronze sculpture, fiber arts, and art books. I took a lot of art history classes. In my junior year, I did study abroad in Siena, Italy, where I studied Medieval and Renaissance Art with our passionate Art History professor at museums and historic sites throughout Italy. What a gift! 

After graduation, I moved to Oakland, California, and got a job at Papyrus. I learned a lot about business, managing people, corporations, and customized stationery. I have never lacked grit or determination and quickly worked my way up to manager. Papyrus moved me to their Berkeley store to help a struggling manager who had been with the company since the beginning. She loved designing invitations but not day-to-day operations. It was a lucky partnership. She taught me graphic design basics, and I got the store back on track. I found the customized wedding invitations intriguing, but my imagination wanted to go further. 

In 1998 I quit my job at Papyrus and started my own business, “The Perfect Invitation.” I loved my business. I met with clients. We talked about their venue, personalities, and the textures and colors they liked, and then I presented custom invitation ideas to them. I created the art, designed, assembled, and outsourced most of the printing. I was, at times, a starving artist, but I was doing what I loved. I was able to live out my dream, and I will always be thankful for that! My work was featured in Modern Bride, San Francisco Bride, Cosmopolitan Bride, and several other publications. 

In 2008 I had two littles at home. Everything was good, but I was missing art. I applied for a grant to “The Washington School of Photography” in Bethesda, Maryland, and was accepted. I finished the program and received a certificate in “Professional Photography.” I am proficient in Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom and use a Canon 5D Mark II. For several years I worked as a wedding and lifestyle photographer. I loved shooting weddings at the Naval Academy Chapel in Annapolis. I enjoy working with people. The problem with family and wedding photography is that it all happens on the weekends. What was a perfect schedule when my kids were toddlers was not conducive to family life once they were in elementary school. 

In 2015, I started working at a local preschool. I enjoyed it, got more early childhood education so that I could be a lead teacher. Preschool teachers get to teach art and learning through play, it’s fun, but the pay is terrible. It has been several years since I taught at Dolley Madison Preschool, but I still run into the kids I taught and love that they remember our class and the projects we did. 

In 2019, I was offered a McLean Project for the Arts position to develop a preschool art curriculum and be a Preschool Art Teacher. I loved it! I knew that I wanted to be teaching art full time at that moment! I found a licensure program at Shenandoah University where I could use my years as an artist, my BFA (plus the Visual Arts Praxis and VCLA), along with intensive education classes and a teaching practicum to get my Prek-12 teaching license in Virginia. 

Just after I received my teaching license, I took my kids, who were in 6th grade and 8th grade, out of traditional school for the 2019-2020 school year so that we could explore the world and study history. I wanted to give them a different life experience before high school started and know how it feels to be a foreigner. We read a lot of books about what we were studying. We went to MOMA in New York, national parks, learned about the Nez Pierce and other Native American Tribes, and Lewis and Clark as we traveled through Montana, Idaho, and Washington. We traveled to Hawaii and Japan and studied art and culture and WWII. We were able to go to an art studio in Nara where two elderly Japanese women taught us the art of Shibori. 

So, here we are back in the present day. I adore being an art teacher at Claremont Immersion Elementary School in Arlington, Virginia. I present the children with dynamic art lessons, time, and freedom for creativity and self-expression. I validate their work so that their creativity will continue to expand. I try to create the art and creativity spark my art teachers created for me so many years ago.