I was born in 1952, and grew up in Kentucky. My education includes a BFA and MFA from Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana. I taught Printmaking and Book Arts at Kenyon College 1979-83, and at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, 1983-1988. In 1988 my husband, artist Toby Gordon, and I, moved to North Carolina where we established Catbird (on the Yadkin) Press, a printmaking studio and artist book press near the Yadkin River where we make and encourage the making of etchings, woodcuts and handmade books.

A brief statement about my work should begin with the fact that my visual arts career is only part of what I do, and part of how I define myself as an artist, and person. I work also as a storyteller, puppeteer, co-director of Catbird Press, and as an advocate for disability issues. I am also a parent, and I love to garden. I was drawn to printmaking because of the expressive nature of its history. As a lover of poetry and a storytelling, I am naturally drawn to works that use both words and images. Disability impacts my work as an artist, a mother, a gardener, a lover or, to be more explicit, it impacts my humanity.
In my work, I draw the body bent, bending, able and disabled. It has been my deeply personal attempt to reclaim grace for a body often considered outside the conventional definition of “normal”. Living beautifully or gracefully with disability requires me to redefine the words “beauty” and “grace”, and to give them visual form. Work inevitably mirrors our personal experience. The body that I work with is my own. The experiences of my past year have included the illness and death of my father, a continued and growing commitment to social justice issues, and the joy and sadness of watching my children grow into increased independence. In giving form to our personal experiences, we live them again, we understand them anew, and we give them away.