I was born in Fresno, California, but spent my childhood in Texas, where my father worked in ministry and my mother stayed home with me and two younger sisters. I was enrolled in an art school at the age of nine and all seemed wonderful, until my thirteenth year when my parents divorced. Life became much more difficult at that point. After spending part of my high-school education in Colorado where my father lived, I finish and received my high school diploma in 1989 from Hoover High School in Fresno, California, where my mother lived.

I met my soon-to-be husband and step-daughter shortly thereafter and we married in 1993. I began my undergraduate studies in the Fall of 1996 at Fresno City College where I was included on the Deans List of Honor Students each semester for three years. Due to my high grade-point average, I was asked to tutor other students in Art Appreciation, and ultimately other subject matter as well. During this time, I also volunteered as a writing tutor in my step-daughter's elementary classrooms at Thomas Elementary in the Fresno Unified School District. My son was born in 1998, after which I continued school on a part-time basis in order to spend time with him at home. I graduated with an AA in Business Administration in the Fall of 1999 with Highest Honors, the ceremony taking place the Spring 2000.

My vision changed after I had my first baby, and I decided to follow a different course rather than Business. In Fall of 2000, I began attending California State University of Fresno as a double major in Art and English, with the dream of one day writing and illustrating children's books. It did not take more than one semester of studio art classes to realize that there were many other possibilities available to me in art, and I began to explore them. My ideas of art began to change, and are -- in fact -- still in that process.

I took one semester off during the Spring of 2001 when my daughter was due to be born, and continued the following semester. Shortly thereafter, I was invited to participate in a ceremony recognizing my academic achievements and initiating my membership into the Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi. In 2002, I exhibited artwork for the first time in the Dean's Gallery along with others from my painting class under the instruction of Nick Potter. I submitted a large master study painting to the Senior Art Show in 2003 which was displayed in the President's gallery.

The following year, I competed with my peers to become a part of the Artist in Residency Program at the Fresno Metropolitan Museum and won a position from only four available spaces. The award provided a studio space for two semesters as well as an exhibit to be held in the museum at the end of the term. We were also to develop and instruct a workshop for grade school children in conjunction with the program. It was exciting and an immense learning experience, as we made the preparations for our workshop and exhibit, working together as a team, creating our own design for the mailers, and being a part of the gallery process as a whole.

Before graduating from Fresno State in Spring 2006 as a double major earning a BA in Art and English, I was awarded the Dean’s Medal Nomination from the Fresno State Art and Design Department, and runner-up among all the departments of Art and Humanities. As part of this award, I received a scholarship to participate in the CSU Summer Arts Painting and Drawing class held in Florence, Italy in July 2006, where I studied figure painting under the direction of Italian professors from the Accademia.

Through my studies in the two disciplines of Art and English, I have discovered the overlap of their mutual histories. They have gone through the same shifts and reactions and carried with them the same defining criteria: The Enlightenment, Romanticism, Realism, Modernism and Post-modernism. My vision has begun to expand as I explore these parallels in the Arts.

Learning has revealed so many new possibilities, fostering growth and change in my parenting, artwork and life in general. As a student and mother of three, I have had to learn to balance many elements of life with planning and creativity. I believe that my education will continue to enrich my own life and the lives of my children, translating into a stronger academic foundation for them as well. My art and I are still "in process." We are on a transformational journey of exploration and expression that I hope will never end.