Me and mom, playing around in Madison.

To understand who I am and why I do the artwork I do you have to understand where I come from. I was born and raised in the absolutely gorgeous state of Wisconsin. I grew up in a little house where my mom had many beloved pets, a huge garden and an in home daycare. She encouraged me to be creative and appreciate all the living things around me. I remember her taking us for walks to the park every day teaching us the names of all of the plants we passed and pointing out every squirrel, butterfly, or bird. Our pets were equals to anyone else in the family. To this day the children in her daycare are beloved and respected individuals. To this day I still get weekly updates filled with pictures and stories of what her kids were up to this week

Bruce is the old squishy dog on the bottom.

When I was in high school she brought home a puppy named Bruce. She said she picked him because "He was the biggest potato in the box." He ended up being my gigantic, 90 pound, faun and white, drooly, best friend. He was my first real muse.

Me and my pops!

My dad would take me camping and sit around the fire telling tacky stories about kids being scared by a fugitive with a hook, or ghosts in the woods. My uncle Bob A. would bring over corny old Sci-Fi movies or tapes filled with outer limits and twilight zone episodes and we would have the most incredible monster movie marathons. I was a Nintendo playing, animal loving, tomboy, art-geek. Let's just say I didn't ever fit the typical girl mode and I was always proud of it

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I do the artwork I do because of how I was raised and who I was raised around. When I'm working on a portrait I see the personality of my subjects in their eyes and the way they hold themselves because of my mom. I feel like a little girl taking a walk to the park again, in absolute awe of the colors and shapes in a dogs fur, or a child's hands. I love painting flowers and old geeky Sci-Fi stuff and carousel animals because it all brings me back to my roots and makes me feel at home

Ashes, my doggie, helping me sit where the light could hit my book.

Me at the very first C2E2 comic book convention in Chicago!

As I said before I never really fit the mold to your typical girl and now that I'm all grown up I don't really fit the mold for your typical adult. I draw and paint what makes me happy and what brings me back to feeling like a kid again. I am very lucky to be able to do this for a living.