My Story

Becoming an artist had a lot to do with the kind of mother I was given. I grew up with an innate interest in drawing and painting, like most children. But by age four, I began to spend many hours working out my ideas on paper; copying figures and parts of the human body; losing myself in glossy reproductions of paintings in coffee-table art books. My mother, Dinah, insisted that I sign and date my all my drawings from an early age. Thanks to her, I developed a habit of treating my art activity as something really special. It gave me delicious joy to draw, paint and sculpt, and because of her reverence for these things, I felt that making art was important; something that gave me a special, even spiritual purpose in life. With her help, I found my way, as a kid, into adult life-drawing groups and classes where I could study the human form from the live model, entered contests and applied for grants. As a middle-schooler, I landed my first solo gallery show at Seattle University, and soon began to sell my artwork.

I went on to study painting and drawing at the University of Washington, earning my BFA in 2005. I was much impacted by the program and faculty members there, especially Riley Brewster, Zhi Lin and Ann Gale.

After graduation, I secured a studio in downtown Seattle to continue my painting, which consisted of large scale figurative portraits at the time. I took a year off schooling to explore improv theatre, song writing and singing in the then-flourishing Seattle performing arts scene. My curiosity about the poetry of human experience took me to places where I saw characters on vivid display: music clubs, theaters, comedy clubs, poetry slams, happenings, exhibitions and festivals like “Burning Man” in Nevada where I was an artist-participant a couple of times.

Soon, my adventures led me to discover sobriety through a 12-Step fellowship, which caused me to dramatically reevaluate my personal philosophy and focus. With sobriety, I began to value a more introspective approach, which prompted me to walk away from performance and go back east, to focus entirely on painting and drawing.

In graduate school at the Pennsylvania Academy, I kept a low profile, only doing a few group shows and musical gigs, and eventually cutting away everything that felt extraneous. I soon set aside even painting to focus exclusively on drawing for a period. I wanted to use my time in the studio to understand what I was doing at the most basic level. To my surprise, I was honored with the Caldwell Purchase prize for my graduate thesis work. My work was purchased by the Pennsylvania Academy, and I was invited to be in several gallery shows after graduation. One of my large figure drawings caught the attention of a collector, Linda Lee Alter, who eventually donated the piece to the Academy’s permanent collection as a part of a major 2012 museum exhibition featuring women artists.

I maintained a studio in Philadelphia for some time after graduation, exhibiting my work in a couple of galleries and beginning to take on private students. Teaching and mentoring was to become the next great passion in my life. Around that time, at the age of twenty-eight, I found my way back into the Catholic Church.

This personal decision has had a profound impact my work and philosophy. I soon returned to Seattle with a new mission: to find out what kind of artist God wanted me to be. As I studied my faith and integrated my personal life with my deepest convictions, I continued to teach painting and drawing to small classes and private students, while working on painting commissions from my Seattle studio.

In 2017, I married my best friend, Krzysztof Suberlak, an astronomer from Poland who came to Seattle for his graduate studies. While the demands of family life now occupy most of my time, I am still painting, drawing, sculpting, and encouraging others, while raising three small children, just near the edge of the Puget Sound, and the shadowy evergreens of my childhood.

LATEST JOURNAL ENTRIES