I’ve been interested in storytelling with pictures for as long as I can remember. My dad accumulated a huge collection of comics before I was born, boxes and boxes of reprinted midcentury classics like Donald Duck, Little Lulu, Tintin, and Mad Magazine. Before we could read, my brother and I would snuggle up to our dad as he read the panels aloud to us, pointing to each character as they spoke. I also loved to read and reread my favorite picture books, poring over the small details an illustrator put into a medieval castle, a wild wood, or a bustling city street. I was always making my own books and comics, though usually I only got a page or two done before giving up. Throughout elementary and high school I filled my class notebooks with doodles to accompany my lessons, and delighted in the opportunity to draw any time I was assigned to make a book poster or a timeline. 

In my early 20s, I finally entered the world of “grownup” comic artists like R. Crumb and Alison Bechdel – stuff that had really intimidated me when I saw them on my dad’s bookshelf growing up! Now I found that I got the jokes, and once again I felt inspired to make my own comics about my life. Peter Bagge’s Buddy Does Seattle filled me with dreams of living in a dirty, overcrowded hippie house where I, too, could encounter and catalogue weird people – a strange fantasy perhaps, but one that was realized at age 22, when I moved into a shared house in Oakland, California with a rotating cast of eccentric housemates. My brother, meanwhile, moved into an abandoned building in Seattle with his own crew of weirdos. He and I would talk on the phone for hours, sharing stories and brainstorming comics, which I would then go home and draw.  

At age 25, I was forced to leave my native Bay Area when the cost of living became too high (I had gotten all the material I desired out of the shared house and its cast of characters, and now craved my own place). After some internet research, I picked Columbus, Ohio on a whim and moved here with my now-husband. We began making art together in a new medium, painted-paper collage. After working in meticulous black and white for so many years, I now dove into exquisite bright colors and abstract shapes. I also began making flyers, stickers, and pinback buttons with leftist political messaging to distribute at protests. These days I make street art in the form of vinyl stickers, taking imagery and quotes from some of my literary heroes, from Shakespeare to the Grateful Dead. My work is all about following my own ideas, avoiding cliché, and giving other people a glimpse into my own personal inner world.