My formal training as a visual artist resulted in a BFA in 1983 from Purchase College in New York. At Purchase, we just stayed up all night and made art all the time, then talked about it in critique classes. Looking back, I realize how much my time there informed everything that was to come. 

Once graduated, I turned my attention to making a living for myself  as a chef and a bread baker, and then later a farmer, mother, and an herbalist. I have kept painting and making artistic objects all along, mainly in the winter months when the load of farm and herb chores is less and there is time to do other things. 

My work as an artist is entirely exploratory. I mostly work in two dimensions on drawings, paintings, and collages. Every piece seems to struggle to come into being and sometimes that struggle is terrible or futile. I often feel I have no idea what I am doing. Occasionally, I am happy with a result. The work over time seems to have some common themes around working with medicinal plants, grief, accessing spirits, healing, alchemy, and my animistic vision of a luminous world full of mysterious beings.

I make art because I have to- it isn’t a choice, but more of a compulsion or a sort of harmless folly. Occasionally, I have shown my work in galleries, and I sell a piece here or there. For me it has not been something I have ever felt comfortable monetizing. 

Influences include: Folk Art from all over the world, Appalachian craft, DIY culture, Native American beading and other art, Art brut, Rock and roll, Post punk sensibility, Psychedelic art, Outsider art, Children’s book illustration, Occult images, Tarot, Alchemical illustrations, Religious icons, Tattoo art, Medieval art and Embroidery, Lowbrow, and the work of many artists including: Paul Klee, Remedios Varo, Arthur Rackham, Vali Myers, Andy Warhol, Rousseau, and others.

Some of my original art and prints are available in my Etsy store Greenstar Vintage. Click on the Etsy store tab in the menu to visit.

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