I “came out” as an artist in 2014, at age 69. I began showing my work and later that same year, my first solo show was at Ramapo College. In these intervening years my work has been exhibited in the US at museums and galleries, as well as internationally at a conference in Moscow, Russia.

What brought me to this exciting point, late in life? I now work full-time on my art, having drawn and produced art privately for as long as I can remember. I had the good fortune to have more time, combined with friends, professors, artists, and curators who pushed, encouraged, and urged me to go public and continue on this path.

I am a “synesthete” whose cross-neural wiring compels me to see visual patterns in my emotional responses to daily pleasures, pressures, and even written language. I literally see every single sound I hear. All sounds are composed of timbres, pitches and volumes that have shape and color and exist in the richly visual landscape of my mind; thus, I never lack for inspiration. Imagine this, if you will, as a natural, omnipresent high, similar to how those who take psychedelic drugs talk about their experience.

In my world of over-stimulation, the act of producing art, the physical connection with materials, provides me with focus and comfort, an escape, a personal place, or zone, of lovely quiet. Because what I see are super-saturated colors, my work is brightly colored. When hand sewing fabric, I prefer the textures of silk and linen with elements of shiny metallic floss and thread.  The tactility, structure, and sheen of the fabric and thread form an integral part of how I engage with my senses and emotions. My hope is that viewers can experience some of the joy that my art making provides to me.

My art has been exhibited at the Trenton City Museum, the Montclair Art Museum, in galleries at New Jersey Institute of Technology, Ramapo College of New Jersey, Seton Hall University, Lafayette College, the Providence RI VETS Memorial Auditorium, and at The International Association of Synaesthetes, Artists, and Scientists Conference at The Museum of Moscow, Moscow, Russia, and at the Textile Study Group of New York, as well as in various art galleries and public spaces in the metro CT/NY/NJ region.