I write, I doodle, I’ve taught, I’ve painted, and love all the arts.
Brief Bio: I’ve tried my hand as a fiction and non fiction author. I’ve been a Fortune Five Hundred corporate marketing communications manager. I’ve been a freelance illustrator with reps in San Francisco and Seattle. And, I’ve been an art instructor in a private art school and taught Design 109 for Bellevue College, Washington.
The arts are like Alice’s mushroom.
Think of one side of the mushroom as logic and the other side as imagination. Break off a piece on the logic side and you get principles of design and technical considerations. Break a piece off the imagination side and you get playfulness with no rules. All arts contain varying balances of control and free expression—depends on which side of the mushroom you pick from and how big a portion you take. That’s why one work of art might have a sense of careful orderly planning, and another—glorious abandon.
As you explore this website: There are a few rabbit holes to note. For those who want to break off a large chunk of logic, you will find my master’s thesis posted. It bears the ponderous title of Integrating Pedagogies and Learning Approaches from the Arts with Other Academic Disciplines to Enhance Learning. In simple words, that means the arts boost learning in other subjects. (It’s a deep dive into the field of arts integration.)
And for those who like messy inspiration, without rules, I’ll post doodles, on the blog page. They usually start with a pile of random shapes and squiggles and evolve from there. Sometimes I just start with a pair of eyes.
There’s also a list of my book activities—past and current.