Yup. That’s me. Or. . .well, my idea of a self-portrait. At about 10 AM every morning I’m at my drawing board and feel like a mouse that’s consumed three times its body mass in Peet’s coffee: I’m wired. Happily, by virtue of some mysterious alchemy and a visual streak in my DNA chain all that jazzy energy makes its way onto paper.

I grew up outside of New York City “with a paintbrush in my hand.” My father was a cubist painter and much of my school years were spent drawing comics in the classroom. Regular expeditions were made to Flax Art for strange sounding things like “gesso,” “ultramarine blue” and “cadmium red.”

I received a B.A. in Human Ecology from College of the Atlantic and then migrated to the West Coast, in search of what felt like some “intangible, infinite thing.” The openness of the vast Pacific landscape and California’s innovative spirit had a magnetic pull.  I learned to scuba dive, raced sailboats. I loved what the ocean seemed to demand of us:  elemental truths such as camaraderie, courage, grace in overwhelming situations.

I worked as an editor and writer for over fifteen years and authored my first book, Talking Politics: Choosing the President in the Television Age (Praeger), a series of oral-history interviews with top television journalists such as Tom Brokaw, Larry King and Robin MacNeil. In the year following the book’s release I did over 300 radio interviews, but also was in an accident in which I nearly lost my life. The combination of those two experiences – a successful book launch and an acutely vivid reminder of how precious each moment is – caused me to reassess the direction of my work. Over time I have realized that what I most deeply want to do is combine writing and illustration as a vehicle for helping others connect with nature and to inspire them to help forge a sustainable future for the world as a whole.

With much of my work I seek to create “the magic of the encounter” – to take the audience deeply into an experience, whether it be through an oral-history interview or an illustration depicting what it might be like to quietly look into the eyes of a trunkfish in an underwater cavern. For me that sense of connection is the “intangible and infinite thing” I so sought when I came west and I think it’s key to our future.  Our future depends upon seeing connections – biological, cultural, economic, political – and crafting our collective and individual lives with that big picture in mind.

My drawings have been exhibited at a variety of venues including the Fort Mason Center and the Oakland Museum. I am also active in the field of education as the founder of KurtHahn.org, a Web archive devoted to Kurt Hahn, the founder of Outward Bound. My husband and I make our home in the San Francisco Bay area with our dog Zack.