I'd like to be honest about this. Since the day I picked up a crayon at maybe two years old, drawing and painting have always been about having fun. For eleven years, all my notebooks were filled with fashion design, voluptuous models and gargoyls. And art has also always been about doing something well enough to shine in my peer group, and thus, gain notoriety and a better sense of self-worth. But lately, it's been more about separating self-worth from its dependency on artistic abilities, and letting both of these vastly different creatures fly. A year or two after graduation from high school, I landed an apprenticeship in an advertising production shop where the stress, of course, was on pleasing the client and the general public. Although I did well in my job, and rose to positions of responsibility, I was soon questioning my motives and making personal decisions that were the beginning of my creative independence and the ending of my"nine-to-five" era. After a few years of successful freelance as a graphic/production artist, parenthood took over and art was relegated to occasional teaching, sporadic advertising projects and eventually, a daily comic strip. I had made the choice to be a stay-at-home mom and stole moments for my art where I could. I learned a lot in those years, about many diverse things, from computer graphics to to web page design, from acrylic mediums to comedic writing. I honed my skills in many different mediums and began to cleave the tendency for need of approval from my artwork. This task is ongoing and could prove to be monumental, but I think it's crucial to my journey as a fine artist. I have recently entered a new era in my life as my children leave home (and come back and leave and...). I suddenly have time to reflect on a "career" again and narrow my responsibilities a bit. My interest in metaphysics and spirituality, which has been with me since adolescence, continues to grow and already influences a major part of my fine art. I expect the art itself will lead me deeper into my psyche and personal evolution and I intend to work at communicating this with my images as clearly as possible. Eventually, I would like to be able to say that I create fabulous works of creative genius that inspire the evolution and joy in others. There's nothing like a little audacity to one's ambitions.