Born in Champaign, Illinois, I earned a BFA from Cornell University, Ithaca, NY (1973) and an MFA from George Washington University, Washington, D.C. (1976). Between the two degrees and especially influential to my life's studio work, I was employed by Perceval, St. Prex, CH, a residential Swiss school for the intellectually disabled that followed anthroposophy, the teachings/everyday life translations of Rudolph Steiner (1861-1925)—name coincidental, no relation. It was not so much Rudolph's aesthetics, but it was the adaptations of everyday life (i.e. translations of every day life to anthroposophy) that I was required to temporarily adopt in order to stay employed that impacted my thinking about my studio oeuvre, Thereafter, I started thinking of my paintings as translations rather than documentations. Equally important is that my Swiss students had as much or more impact on me, than I had on them. Thus, although I do not myself identify as disabled, there is an underlying narrative of "disability" to much of my studio work. (Unknown to me then, several years later, Rudolph’s art aesthetics would become the centerpiece for the 2013 Venice Biennale.)

During my life, I have been fortunate to travel extensively to countries worldwide including France, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Italy, Israel, (then) West Pakistan, India, Thailand, Hong Kong, and Japan--in part, due to "day jobs' for art museums to support myself as an artist (i.e. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY, NY, The Princeton University Art Museum, Princeton, NJ, and the Wichita Art Museum, Wichita, KS). In addition, my art studio career benefited from two studio residencies at Edward Albee’s Foundation (Montauk, NY) and a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. My paintings have been shown widely, favorably reviewed by both local/national press, and are represented in American and European private collections as well as in major corporate holdings including 3-M (Minneapolis, MN), New York Health, Hospital Corporation (NY, NY), among others.