About the Artist

I’ve been a psychologist for many years, as well as a "shadow artist". I immensely enjoy working with psychotherapy clients in talk therapy to explore, make meaning, and seek connection to ideas and patterns that impact our lives-- and can change our lives.  With visual art, I was drawn to art festivals, craft shows, and galleries (although rarely working up the courage to walk in, knowing no "art talk" if a curator or director inquired what I was interested in!). I would admire the handmade visual art, fiber art, music, and performance art that others created. Over decades, I filled my home and work spaces with original pieces that brought me joy, peace, kinship, and awe when I looked at them.

It was not until I began sketching and painting with watercolors several years ago that I saw the parallels between making art and practicing psychotherapy: both involve a “call and response” that build momentum towards discovery, both carry meaning and intentionality, and they both require courage to look beyond, among many other parallels. My clients in psychotherapy have demonstrated year after year the bravery it takes to look around corners, dig in the mess, and find the treasures (or make them). As a therapist, I am a guide and witness, where the client must take the big leaps. As an artist, the jig is up— any facade must fall away if I want my art to have authenticity. It takes courage for all of us to look beyond limits of comfort and I’m here for it.

I'm self-taught; working in watercolors for the first few years, filling sketchbooks with the images and life happening around me. I have poured myself into learning new mediums, particularly acrylic, collage, and mixed media to create abstract and representational work. 

I hope you enjoy browsing my work and hope you will reach out with any questions. As I continue adapting to my full-artist self, I have signed many of my works with "elle" on the front, and full signature, name of the work, and year on the back. "Elle" is my integrated artist self, no longer living in the shadow.