A little More about Sweetie
Artist Statement
My art is a series of 3-D dialogues, inviting you on an adventure to inspire, reflect, and maybe even move forward in some way you didn't expect.
I work in mixed media, typically on canvas, merging hand strokes, bold color, and acrylic paint with found materials that add layers of meaning.
Each piece tells a deeply human story, reflecting lived experiences, emotions, and the messy, beautiful situations we all move through. It's a dialogue, a connection, one that reminds us that while our individual stories are unique, we share common threads in how we live, face challenges, and emerge transformed.
I use metaphor and a little humor to invite you in fully, without reservation, with a sense of play, wonder, and possibility. The dialogues within my work are silent, but they reveal themselves in layers. Like a hologram,
they shift as you lean in, as you take a moment to truly immerse yourself.
I am passionate about keeping materials out of landfills and waterways. I collect natural and man-made objects, sometimes randomly, sometimes with pure intention, holding onto them in what I call my collection of opportunities. Broken pieces of vintage jewelry, memorabilia, toy parts, fabrics, book cut-outs, old tools, kitchen items, coins, subway tokens, beehives, and nature's remnants all find their way in.
These are stories of hope and reinvention, no matter how messy the journey.
My work is an ode to freedom, both mine and yours.
Each time you interact with a piece, it's my hope that you create your own conversation, rich with memories, connections, and future possibilities.
The Glove Series - what we hold on to & What Let We Go
Don't Loose your Marbles over Broken Records
30" W x 40" H x 2.5" D
Materials used: Acrylic paint on canvas. Upcycled vintage gloves, vinyl records, one broken piece of rhinestone gold-toned jewelry, tox jax, Monopoly game pieces: houses, marbles.
This piece reminds us that we store all kinds of records for and against ourselves and others.
And then the records can become our internal dialogs, stories.
Sometimes they become musical lyrics, or books of good conversations, bad conversations. Records, memories.
Some of records replay, others spin out of control, some are just sweet memories,
Some of them are broken records and create that monkey mind chatter, that self-doubt, that imposter syndrome, and some create joy and love and elevation.
Yet, we get to choose which ones stay, which ones to break, which ones to remove.
Always handling our energy with white kid gloves, period.
Energy is everything. Sight, powered by the eye, is the most dominant of the five traditional human senses (vision, hearing, smell, taste, and touch). Our primary tool for navigating and understanding the world. A highly sophisticated camera, capturing light and converting it into electrical signals that the brain translates into images and energy.
Energy management is more important than time management in my world.
Don’t Lose your Marbles is one of my favorite phrases that I kind of grew up with, meaning you get to play the game that you choose.
Pick up the marbles. Leave the marbles, but don't lose your marbles. Everything is in the palm of your hand. Sort of like when you pick an hors d'oeuvre from a table.
You get to pick. You get to choose what and how you consume.
The Bridges Communication, Lost & Found Lines
36" W x 36" H x 2.5" D
Acrylic paint on canvas. Upcycled vintage rotary phone, misc.
Lego pieces, and one real chicken's egg, resined.
It reminds me that communication starts with vibration.
Vibration of spoken word. Words can elevate and lift.
Words can crumble and kill.
We've all experienced it. We know the power of the tongue.
We also know the power of listening. The old saying, two ears, one mouth for a reason.
The greatest two words for me are, thank you. A universal prayer to open doors.
It tells you a lot. It relieves you. It moves you forward, it releases you, it invites you.
Thank you. Always opens the door either to knowing, learning,
Inviting, releasing, allowing. Thank you.
My grandmother and my friend Judith used to say;
“The two greatest words in a single prayer are, thank you.”
I know now. Thank you. You told me.
Thank you. I saw you. Thank you.
I felt it. Thank you. I know it.
Thank you for what you've done.
Thank you for being part of my life.
Thank you for leaving my life.
Thank you for showing me who you were in my life.
Two words: Thank you.
I wonder; can we build the bridge to positive communication naturally?
Or do we need an artificial bridge to get us there, when we have the pieces and parts and the skills and the know-how. Sort of like the Lego bridge?
Communication, natural or artistically created.
It's our choice. It's fragile, like an egg. It can be broken.
Maybe not the power of communication.
The spoken word, the word left unsaid, the number of tries. You just took it off the hook.
You left it off the hook, or you were off the hook, or the whole thing was off the hook.
It’s all how you handle it. I like to remind myself, before I answer, or speak to remember how it will land and the rippling effect, the lines of communication.
9 Cures at Your Dispense
30" W x 40" H x 2.5" D
Acrylic paint on canvas. Hand illustrations on medicine bottles. Upcycled vintage gloves, my thyroid prescription bottles, 3-D letters left from a corporate art project.
These are my thyroid prescription bottles.
I've had to take this medication every day for hypothyroidism since I was 27 years old. The little orange bottle reminds me of an obligation. For many of us, medication isn't optional, yet I'm grateful I've gotten ahead of some of the side effects.
Through years of study, trial, and error, I learned that one pill-one of anything-doesn't do it all.
It takes a harmony of efforts to heal and remain healthy. Daily.
Not just our bodies, but our minds, our spirits, and our perspective.
The vintage candy vending machine reminded me of childhood, when choosing something sweet felt simple and joyful. Instead of candy, though, I imagined it dispensing something different.
What if, alongside the medications we sometimes need, we also reached for nature's cures?
The nine bottles are hand illustrated with reminders of the choices available to us every day. I chose the number 9 intentionally. It is widely revered as a sacred and spiritual symbol of divine completion, wisdom, and universal love. It also represents the culmination of one cycle and preparation for a new beginning.
- Laugh out loud.
- Music / Sing.
- Acts of kindness and thank-yous.
- You choose.
- Digital detox and more sleep.
- Get creative.
- Move your body in any way.
- Get into nature. Be outdoors. Feel the sun.
Energy in and energy out. Rejuvenation. Saying YES to ourselves.
The garden surrounding the vending machine is filled with lupine, one of my grandmother's and my aunt's favorite flowers. The vintage glove represents what we choose to hold, what we invite into our lives, and what we're finally ready to release.
This piece isn't suggesting we stop taking medication. Quite the opposite. It's about remembering that healing can be layered. Medicine and nature. Science and creativity. Rest and resilience. They don't have to compete. They can work together.
So, as you leave this piece, I hope you'll ask yourself three simple questions:
What are you holding onto? What are you ready to invite into your life? And what might you finally be ready to release?
We the People: Celebrating 250 Years of the United States
40" W x 16" H x 2.5" D
Mixed Media Assemblage - 2026
Acrylic on canvas with reprint of USA Constitution on parchment, line illustration over the top by me, reclaimed costume prop\Liberty torch vintage noise maker, vintage Happy Birthday cookie cutter, found feather, and coins of significance, Poppy from Vetrans collecting for a cause and a remembrance, new vintage styles keychains
For years I have collected objects that crossed my path by accident, through family, travel, or simple serendipity.
I rarely throw them away because I believe every object carries a story.
This assemblage brings those stories together to celebrate
the 250th birthday of the United States.
This reprint of our Constitution traveled home with my daughter after a school trip.
The Happy Birthday cookie cutter belonged to my grandmother and reminds me of birthdays celebrated around the kitchen table.
The Statue of Liberty torch was a Halloween prop our daughter chose in kindergarten nearly twenty years ago. The matchbook covers came from a family-owned jewelry company in Rhode Island whose craftsmanship and optimism inspires me.
None of these objects were created for this artwork. Each earned its place through time.
At the heart of the piece are three simple keys.
They remind us that we the people hold the keys to our nation's future.
Each of us has something to contribute. We can give our time, our talent, our treasure, and our voice. We can celebrate, debate, create, volunteer, vote, teach, build, and care for one another.
Freedom is not passive. It is something we help sustain.
The poppy honors those who sacrificed their lives so those freedoms could endure.
The torch reminds us not to switch liberty on and off according to convenience. It is our responsibility to keep its light burning.
The noisemaker celebrates the joy of coming together, even through difficult times, because democracy depends on participation.
The dice are a reminder that this is not the time to gamble
with the principles that have carried our nation for 250 years.
Happy Birthday America, the future is ours, for we hold the keys.
The Sun Sees, the Sun Forgets
16 W x 20" H x 2.5" D
Mixed Media Assemblage on Acrylic Wood Panel
Photo transfer of an image my journals from over a 20 year span,
upcycled packing material from our business, three Magnolia tree seed buds from my trip to Orlando, visit, vintage postcard of huming birds, broken vintage poem from children's 1950's book, vintage gemstone broken jewerly,
an old illustration from a famous river in Florence circa 1902
,and a pair of my rhinestoned readers, and fresh untapped canvas on mini easel.
The sun rises. The sun sets. The sun sees a lot. He kindly forgets.
To me, that means forgiveness. What we see, and what we choose to let go of,
is all a choice.
This painting on a wood panel reminds me of the chance and choice of hummingbirds that, like life, flutter and flicker. They decide to return home to the places where they feel most comfortable.
The tree is made from repurposed packing materials from our family business.
They remind me that almost everything deserves another chance.
Things can be repurposed, reused, and redefined.
The magnolia seed pods are especially meaningful to me. The iconic cone-like seed pods, produced in the autumn, are considered an ancient plant feature.
Magnolias are among the oldest flowering plants, with fossil records dating
back more than 100 million years.
I found them while visiting my longtime friend Sandra in Florida. She's from Newfoundland, Canada, and every time I look at them, I think about the longevity of friendship, the importance of being open to travel, and how unique each life is.
We all stand the test of time differently.
I also happen to love things in threes. In spirituality, the number 3 represents creativity, self-expression, and the Divine Trinity. It symbolizes wholeness and the spark of creation that brings opposing forces into balance.
The vintage jewelry and my rhinestone readers are part of the story, too.
Those are actually my glasses. The broken objects have value because they were part of the journey.
The journals in the background span more than twenty years of my life. The growth, the reflection, and the repetitiveness. Some memories fade. Others stay with us forever. And that's okay.
The small blank canvas on the easel is there for a reason. Every day is new for you and me to create. We get to paint a fresh canvas of life, daily.
Nature Sings : A Collection of Walks
30" x 30"
Materials:
Acrylic on canvas with eco-friendly resined bee hive, Robin’s egg-1/2 shell, various pieces of nature, vintage broken jewelry.