About Me
My background
I'm a 56-year-old multi-disciplinary artist, mother of three, and licensed real estate agent who spent 20 years guiding people through life transitions while making art "on the side." But art was never the side project.
I studied creative writing at Cal State Long Beach, screenwriting at UCLA, and landscape design at Cabrillo College. I've worked as a costume designer at Scotts Valley High School (9 years), created repurposed fashion, and painted over 50 Frida Kahlo works during COVID. In 2024, everything shifted when I began collaborating with Timothy Young—a death row poet and artist wrongfully incarcerated since 1999. My visual responses to his poetry were published in UC Santa Cruz's Solitary Garden Plant Books, leading to active participation in prison abolition work.
Now I'm applying to UCSC's MFA program in Environmental Art & Social Practice, transitioning from artist-with-a-day-job to full-time artistic practice focused on advocacy and social change.
Based in Scotts Valley, California, with studio space at Vintage Pick Art and Studio. Member of San Francisco Women Artists.
The real me
I am a multi-disciplinary artist working at the intersection of art, healing, and social justice. My practice asks: Can art do more than document injustice—can it actually intervene in it?
Core Work:
- Healing Dolls: Fabric dolls honoring artists and activists the system has marginalized (Basquiat, RBG, Kamala Harris, Timothy Young)
- Collaborative Prison Abolition Art: Visual responses to death row poet Timothy Young's work, published in UC Santa Cruz Solitary Garden Plant Books
- Repurposed Fashion: "All Things Genevieve" transforms vintage textiles into wearable art
- Youth Theater: Costume design and mentorship empowering young people through creative expression
Philosophy:
I call my work "artivism"—art as activism. My practice is rooted in radical empathy: I imagine myself in another's unbearable situation and create from that place of shared humanity. I work across media (painting, textile, film, theater) because justice work requires flexibility.
Current Focus:
Applying to UCSC's MFA in Environmental Art & Social Practice to deepen my study of how art can move from witness to weapon, from documentation to liberation.
Recognition:
Member of San Francisco Women Artists | Published in UCSC Solitary Gardens Project | 20+ years transition guide supporting people through life's biggest changes
Art is how I refuse to look away. It's how I say: I see you. Your humanity matters. And I will not let the system erase you.
Things I love
My People Riley (DJ, music collaborator), Stryker (UCSC grad, Game designer), Monte (high school baseball catcher, still dreaming big). These three taught me what it means to witness someone become themselves.
The Work Painting, sewing vintage textiles into new life, writing poetry, making healing dolls for people the world tried to erase, collaborating with Timothy Young from death row. Art that refuses to stay quiet.
The Materials Watercolor that bleeds. Vintage fabrics with stories sewn in. Collage—making whole from broken pieces. Frida's flower crowns. Anything I can transform.
The Ideas Can art unlock injustice or only witness it? Prison abolition. Radical empathy. Success as change, not money. Refusing to let anyone be reduced to a number.
The Simple Joys Thrift stores. Strong coffee. Gardens—especially Solitary Gardens at UCSC. My studio at Vintage Pick Art and Studio. Riley's music. Stryker's phone calls. Monte's baseball games. The moment a painting tells me it's done.
The Artists Who Taught Me Frida Kahlo, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Timothy Young, Anna Drew, Leah Campbell Badertscher.
What I'm Building An MFA at UCSC in Environmental Art & Social Practice. A book documenting this journey of art and advocacy—the collaboration, the fight, the question of whether art can be a literal key. A collaborative art show combining my visual art with Tim's poetry and message. Timothy Young's freedom. A life where art is the center, not the side. A world where nobody needs healing dolls because nobody gets consumed.
The Truth I love the fight. I love the making. I love being 56 and finally knowing what my work is.