I have been creating unique digital art with my original photographs for the past 15 years. My pieces are driven by a strong connection to the flora, fauna, and landscapes of the Southwest. In 2005, when my husband’s life began to unravel with pain, I turned to digital art as a way to stay grounded and creative as we struggled with his medical needs.

In 2015, my lovely husband Bob died after living with chronic pain for over twenty years. It was reconnecting with my art that sustained me through the dark days of grief. In 2019 I spent 8 weeks in East Palo Alto attending a Compassion Cultivation Training Course at the Center for Compassion, Altruism, Research and Education (CCARE) at Stanford. In January 2020 I began an 11-month course jointly hosted by CCARE and the Applied Compassion Academy to learn to teach mindfulness and compassion cultivation within my lovely community in Socorro. I taught my first college level class Cultivating Compassion-based Mindfulness in the fall of 2020 learning to navigate Zoom along with the rest of the World.

In the summer of 2021, fully vaccinated I headed north on an amazing road trip that I had been dreaming about for 15 years. First stop was Badlands National Park, which was an absolute delight. It was wonderful to be outside enjoying the incredible rock formations, the wild grasses and wild flowers, the Big Horn Sheep, the Prairie Dog colonies and the occasional deer. My newest art work comes from this amazing trip that also took in Mount Rushmore, Custer State Park, Devils Tower, the Big Horn Mountains, Little Big Horn, and returning to Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons National Parks after an absence of 21 years.

In the fall of 2021 I volunteered to teach Mindfulness at two elementary schools in Socorro County and continue to teach this spring. It’s been a joyful journey delving into mindfulness, compassion and loving kindness. My new art pieces are infused with the joy I felt during my travels in 2021 and early 2022.