Biography
I began drawing when I was very young, and it has remained at the center of my life. As a child, I studied clay sculpture with Harris Baron, a playful yet serious artist whose spontaneous, stream-of-consciousness musings showed me—before I had words for it—the value of curiosity and the wandering, imaginative mind. At a long table of children shaping clay into fantastical forms, I felt an early, intuitive recognition of the bond between form and meaning.
I was equally drawn to reading and thinking, which led me to Bryn Mawr College intending to study philosophy. But I missed the physical act of making art, and I completed my degree at Bennington College with a BA in painting. Mentors Pat Adams and Isaac Witkin, both profound thinkers as well as artists, helped shape the direction of my work.
In New York City, I taught children at the Brooklyn Museum—one of the first institutions to create free community arts programs connecting the museum with its surrounding neighborhoods—and I taught adults at Parsons School of Design. Working in these contrasting environments became a form of research into how people learn and engage with visual processes. This inquiry led me to pursue a Ph.D. in Art Education at New York University, where I focused on perceptual development and artistic growth in children.
In 1995, I moved to Ann Arbor to teach at the Stamps School of Art & Design at the University of Michigan. There, I joined my life partner, Buzz Alexander, founder of the Prison Creative Arts Project, in working alongside incarcerated artists—both to make art together and to raise awareness about the crisis of mass incarceration. I began facilitating visual art workshops in prisons and soon brought students with me to do the same. In 1996, Buzz and I curated the first Exhibition of Art by Artists in Prisons. Now an annual event, these exhibitions have grown substantially and have become embedded in the artistic culture of Michigan’s prisons. Inspired by my Art Workshops in Prisons course, I later created Detroit Connections, a class that brought university students into Detroit public schools to make art with elementary-aged children.
My own creative practice began in landscape painting, drawn by light, place, and a visceral connection to the natural world. Working with incarcerated artists deeply influenced my later work—the urgency of their need to create and their inventive use of limited materials reshaped my understanding of artistic possibility. When I shifted into nonrepresentational drawing, I carried forward a focus on gesture, luminosity, and sense of place that had anchored my landscapes.
I exhibit my work at the Blue Mountain Gallery in New York City and in various Michigan venues. I have been awarded residencies at the Whitney Independent Study Program; the Emma Lake, Triangle, and Thupelo Workshops; the MacDowell Colony; the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts; Jentel; Ragdale; the Hambidge Center; and the Blue Mountain Center. My honors include the Harold R. Johnson Diversity Award, the Arthur F. Thurnau Professorship for excellence in undergraduate teaching, a fellowship at the U-M Institute for the Humanities, and the Humanity in the Arts Award.