About

I am a high school art teacher and professional artist in Manchester, Connecticut.  I love teaching and have a passion for art.  In addition, many people know that I have an amazing love for dogs and the world of dog sports.  My work tries to portray the relationships between people and dogs, and in particular, those relationships that develop through working in dog sports such as agility, barn hunt, and obedience.  

My first foray into agility was with my rescue dog, Kira.  She was a shiba inu with spunk! She was horrible with other dogs.  Through agility, we both developed confidence and began to face our fears.  We also made a lot of friendships along the way with both people and other dogs.  

It wasn't until I got my Akita, Nanaki, and Kira had passed away that I started seriously studying relationships between people and dogs.  It sparked from my fractured relationship with Nanaki.  After Kira had passed away, I started putting a lot of pressure on him to perform at agility.  It put a strain on us as a team, and I began to feel very frustrated. 

As a result, my early works of art were centered around loving relationships between my friends in agility and their dogs.  I was almost revering what they had and lamenting that I did not have the same relationship with my dog.  Then I began to paint more awkward relationships as I started to really look at people's interactions with their dogs. I soon discovered that everyone goes through what I was going through with Nanaki at some point or another. 

Now my work is about the connections between people and their dogs in various dog sports.  I show these relationships through color, movement, and sequencing. I am also constructing the space to allow the viewer to understand the setting, and to feel the tension, excitement, and fun that people have when they are working with their dogs. .