About

: From a sketch by my father
c. 1954

Hello and welcome to my blog…

Beginning…

While growing up in Southern California, I was immersed in the arts. My father was an artist (and a public school district administrator) and my mother had a ballet school (and taught kindergarten). The conversations around our dinner table were about the art of art, the art of the theater, and the art of teaching. I was the only person I knew who lived in a house where there was a lithograph press in the garage. I danced and was in plays. Art surrounded us but I had no confidence in my abilities in the visual arts until I discovered ceramics at the age of twenty-seven. I always knew I wanted to be a teacher.

Middle…

My college years were spent in the Central Coast area of California (an environment that often turns up in my photos and posts). After getting my teaching credential, I taught special education, High School English and Reading until the year that I was needed to fill in by teaching a few periods of art. I found that in the art room I was at home and I began to understand my real purpose for teaching with confidence and joy.

I married TM almost forty years ago and at first we lived in Southern California. During that time I learned ceramics, we restored a beloved Victorian house that had been built in 1900 and we adopted two kids. The one that loved and excelled at every sport became a personal trainer. The one who could learn only visually went to film school and now has a YouTube channel.

Twenty five years ago we moved to Northern California near San Francisco and eventually I went back to teaching, but this time teaching art full-time at a local Intermediate School. It was the best job, ever, and included ceramics classes in a well set-up lab. The last three years before retirement I was assigned to advise the Yearbook and that was when I developed a love affair with digital photography and visually telling a story.

Continuation…

To me retirement has opened the world of travel and the world of creativity inherent in my iPhone…

This is what I know:

It is wise to plant your garden with native plants and use drip irrigation if you live in draughty California (golf courses in the desert make no sense).