The Comox Valley, British Columbia nurtured my childhood with its wild, lush landscape. I absorbed the beauty and solace that inspired my inner expression through drawing, constructing, writing, singing and caring for others (animals, birds, bugs, family, kids, plants). This beginning expanded throughout the years to a consistent, simultaneous passion for art and healing. After obtaining a degree in nursing (1972) and working in diverse cultures (including many Canadian Indigenous communities) throughout the world; making art in bits and pieces as I had time, I was compelled in 1985 to live my art and attend the Emily Carr College of Art and Design in Vancouver, BC. Following 2 years of concentrated art; my creativity and innate humor became intricately interwoven in healing work with children, youth, and families. I worked in psychiatry as a nurse/counselor and bio-field  (or energy) therapist for 10 years incorporating all of my creative/healing skills. In July 1997 I moved permanently to Gabriola Island.

My own inner growth is reflected in the art that has emerged throughout the years and offers me greater self/other understanding. Symbols, dreams and metaphor have a large, meaningful place in my life, as have nature and a strong spiritual ‘knowing’. With all of this change, came the need to nurture my inner self by living in ways that allowed me to live the art flowing through me and to practice the counseling/energy healing work that was an integration of shamanic practices, subtle energy techniques and counseling.

A few years after moving to Gabriola, while working as a nurse practitioner for short contracts in outpost indigenous communities, I experienced heavy occupational exposure to mould and mould toxins in Health Canada nursing stations and residences. This led to a serious, life-threatening illness which has become a debilitating chronic, multi-system illness, persisting since 2002. Because my cognitive, physical abilities and immune function have been dramatically eroded by the complex health problem, I have turned more fully to my intuitive art-making to find my way through, to make sense of the illness and move forward.

Today art, healing and spirituality are themes interwoven in a stimulating engagement with the academy where I explore what is genuine and essential to being/balance- ‘health’, while challenging medical model views. Art expression, in particular sculpture, is my sustenance, vital to what is my dominant form of communication. My relationship with the creative has opened into a coming to know/understand: Art as Process, Art as Research, Art as Activism, Art as Healer and Art as Spiritual Practice. All intersect and interweave with the other... ...all facets of one.