Lancaster Indie Arts

I am (proudly) the newest member of Lancaster Indie Arts...a wonderful group of local artists that inspire one another and encourage the work of independent artists in Lancaster.

check out the site: www.lancasterindiearts.com

This is my bio:

I am an artist specializing in art made from salvaged things. I love using bold colors. At the age of 5, I wanted to be an artist, art teacher, and writer.

I grew up in an army family, and lived in Maryland, Alaska, Texas, Massachusetts, and moved to Pennsylvania the summer before my senior year of high school. My mother called us gypsies. Although my father was a Lt. Colonial, he was always extremely creative, as are many on that side of my family. As coal miners in the western part of Pennsylvania, they learned to use what they had. I was always fascinated that my godfather built 3 houses for fun out of salvaged building materials he picked up on his way to and from the mines.

As a child in Massachusetts, my mother signed me up for all sorts of art classes, and so I had after school pottery class, oil painting lessons, went to Art Camp at the prestigious Groton School, painted in the desert of New Mexico, and was in the "talented and gifted" artistic program at school, which I thought was insanely elite-ist but cool at the same time (as it enabled me to get out of class all day once a month and go to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, or backstage at the Boston Symphony.)

In 1995 I graduated from Alvernia College, with a degree in Communication and a minor in Art. The school did not have an Art major, so I took all the art classes they offered, most of them taught by Sister Magnifica. In my final semester I interned, and hated working in an office and wearing suits. Later that spring, I accepted a position to spend the next year as a nanny to four children in Connecticut- in a house with over 1000 American folk art paintings. During that year I traveled to Maine, Seattle, the Hamptons, London, Switzerland and Rome with the family, and loved living amongst that much art!

Following that year, I spent the next ten working in offices (ugh). When I had my son at age 32, I decided to quit work and I started to pursue art again.

In 2007 I began selling my painted and decoupaged salvaged cabinet doors in downtown Lancaster at Eastern Market, and on Etsy. I have started to make smaller things using salvaged wood and house paints, and have sold my work at the Studio and Art Bar of York, at the Spoiled Silly Children's Boutique in Lititz, PA, at the Art is Negotiable Gallery in Lancaster, and at Senorita Burrita.

Look for two of my handmade cards in the upcoming book, "1000 Handmade Greetings" by Quarry Books.

My work is constantly evolving and I am adding more and more materials to my designs, including furniture, buttons, twigs, and wool, textiles, and paper.