Starting out as a cartoonist and black-and-white illustrations artist, I have always had an eye for lines. That eye started from the beginning as my earliest memory is staring from my crib at cardboard cutouts of Little Bo Peep and a couple of sheep my mother had hung on my bedroom wall.
For the last several years, I’ve not only been helping raise sheep myself with artist partner JC Borders, but I’ve also been exploring the mediums of pastel and scratchboard, showcasing the wood grains, fur, and feathers of the Colorado Plateau’s flora and fauna. I am particularly drawn to birds of the desert, from magpies to condors to tanagers to wrens and roadrunners.
Though I was raised in southern California, my Midwesterner grandparents sent me art supplies—oh, glorious!—for my birthdays. My observant third-grade teacher Miss Guthrie recognized the timid little girl who offered to prepare classroom bulletin boards from the huge rolls of paper and stacks of construction paper in the teacher’s workroom. Later came encouragement from friends and co-workers, trips to Paris, and now the welcoming Moab community.
So, welcome to my collection of scratchboard pieces, showcasing the lovely diversity of our feathered friends all around us. Enjoy with me their colors, their strangeness, their fierceness and fragility, their fleeting visits to our trees and pastures.
