I realize that writing one's own biography and particularly in this tone is far from professional. However, after years of only ever presenting the sleek and tidy professional format I have decided that it is time to delve a little deeper into the world in which I have lived for so long and to offer up some insight to my emotional background. I feel that it is the only way to even begin to try to accurately and fully communicate the significance of art in my life, and why art is and has always been such a vital part of my life and over all a true life necessity for me. And I must apologize, although it is more or less an overview, while trying to do my best to adequately illustrate the main points it has become rather lengthy.

Art has always, quite literally, been my life. Since I was old enough to be physically able to hold an art implement I have been creating. I used anything I could get my hands on, crayons, pencils, color pencils, markers, brushes, paints, Play-Dough, non-hardening and air drying clay, just to list a few. Even before I knew charcoal existed I would use my mother's chard wooden matchsticks I would take from her ashtray and smudge them around on any paper I could find. I have also been fascinated with histories of ancient cultures, ancient mythologies, European folk lore and the seemingly endless aspects of nature for as long as I can remember.

I have always been aware of and rather predisposed to the nocturnal world and the darker elements of life and of nature particularly the harsh realities of things and as odd as it may sound, I took strange comfort in these things. These elements along with my dreams and visions of the worlds of the imagination and of the darker realms have been the main body of my work since I could hold a pencil. Even my earliest scribbles being those of bizarre creatures, scenes of trees, nature and night, dragons, gargoyles, demon-like people, along with the somewhat lighter and more frivolous subjects of our many animals and a wide verity of superheroes and villains.

I am primarily self-taught, at least in the technical aspects, with the exception of one season of once-weekly general art tutoring at Celestial Studios. Most of what I know I owe to my best friend and the closest person I ever had to a father growing up, who was also my uncle by marriage for some time. He taught me what he could over the phone and it was up to me to put it to paper. It was also him that I have to thank for my first set of Prismacolor pencils and art markers, pastels, art papers and so many other art supplies.

Although Prismacolor color pencils are my favorite and primary medium, I also work in soft pastels, art markers and graphite, as well as with inks both by brush and painting applications and with the use of technical pens. I have also dabbled in sculpting, painting, jewelery making and beading, chain mail design and construction, and mask making for both gallery sale and custom works for individual customers. I also enjoy writing, and designing and constructing clothing, costumes and corsetry.

Now, you must realize that when I refer to “art” I am referring not only to drawing but to the broad spectrum of creative applications that is the world of the visual arts. I have always entertained passions other then that of visual and the physically obtainable arts but there has always been something so much more for me in the visual manifestations and personifications of abstract feelings, energies and ideas.

Born in the south and raised in a small rural town, my life has been rather like a Southern Gothic novel and I can say without a doubt that I have more then enough experiences to fill the pages of such a book. However, I am omitting the many details of the multitude of issues with a dysfunctional father and the daily insanity of the nightmare that was the first many years of my life.

I grew up in a double-wide trailer and from the beginning of my school days I was homeschooled by my mother who was unable to hold a job for the lack of anything resembling reliable transportation or anyone capable of watching me when I was very young. For the first twelve years of my life I was more or less socially isolated. However, from around six years old to about sixteen I did take ballet classes off and on whenever our car would decide to run. But as for things as they were for the first twelve years, it was really only my mother, our many animals and the situation with the emotionally abusive father and his parents who were our only real neighbors along an old dirt road and other then that, for several years anyway, a lovely elderly lady who lived quite a way down the road from us whom my mother and I would visit whenever we were able. And of course I always had my art.

I have had Juvenal Rheumatoid Arthritis since I was eighteen months old and suffered from severe depression from a very young age, although I was never diagnosed or treated. Mainly because I didn't wish to worry my mother, who I knew was already dealing with far too much as it was. In later years, I was also diagnosed with type one diabetes at the age of nine. When I was drawing or creating in some way were times when I had some relief from pain or was truly able to completely enjoy something.

Once I had found out that a person could actually have a job creating art and had been shown this astounding world of fantasy art and all the amazing artists in it I knew there was no other existence for me.

It was my goal then to be able to make at least an adequately sustaining living by creating, to be able to at least grow up and be some small part of this fantastic world of art. I never dared to dream of becoming famous, even as a young child I realized it would be more then difficult. But there was nothing else for me in this world, nothing that I desired more or even comparatively so. This was my dream, my goal in life, and my main reason on so many accounts, for not doing something terribly drastic. Simply put, art was my life support.

I did have my bad days and nights and weeks when I just wanted to give up even though they had no idea how far down I was sometimes, it was my mother and my uncle who encouraged me to continue with my art and to give me hope when mine was more then fading. When I longed for oblivion yet felt utterly undeserving of a release from the pain and the seemingly hopelessness and futility of our situation in some facet is was always my love of art that pulled me back. And so I persisted.

When I was about eleven or so the father's parents passed away and he, not willing to live across the road from their house, decided to move. So we all moved out of the trailer and into a house.

It was, my mother and I hoped, a new beginning. But, it ended up far from anything we had hoped, the living situation and the ever prevalent issues with the father only worsened from there. However, now I was old enough to stay home while my mother was able to work some odd hours as a dog groomer and I was able to take weekly piano and voice lessons, music has always been my second creative passion. For me it invokes imagery and movement that complements and even creates visual representations of the deepest and rawest emotions.

It was during this portion that at the age of twelve I was hired to design the logo for a new local dance studio.

This was my first paying job as an artist and quite an encouraging experience. From there I entered local youth art shows, was published in Cricket magazine and took commissions. At fifteen I entered to be juried into the Dragon*Con art show in Atlanta, Georgia. After weeks of anticipation and an ever dwindling hope I received a letter from the convention art show department. It was all I could do not to cry. I was utterly elated. I was accepted! That experience is still one of the best of my life. To my knowledge, at the time I was the youngest to participate in the art show. Although I refused to allow it to go to my head, and reasoning it must have been some kind of fluke, I knew it was a good start. The doors were opened and I took every opportunity.

For the next three years I took commission work and entered art exhibits and competitions and was published in Cricket magazine. I also participated in the many annual science fiction, fantasy and Anime conventions in Atlanta, Georgia including Dragon*Con, Sci-fi Summer and Anime Weekend. I have was also the featured artist at The Coffee Shop of Horrors for three consecutive months along with taking part in an invitation-only charity event featuring visual and performing arts. I have also worked on projects including creature concept designs and other logo and character designs. It seem as though everything was going quite well and even though my mother and I were still in a bad living situation things were looking up and for once it truly seemed that there was a way out and that my dream was coming true and rather quickly at that.

Then came the crash. When I was about to turn eighteen the father would no longer have any legal responsibility for me. He refused to pay the bills and eventually willing allowed the house be put up for auction for non payment of the mortgage. This was all happening around the time I had received a phone call informing me that my friend and only real father figure had committed suicide. I had never known that side of him, likewise he never knew that side of me, no one did.

It was shortly after that that my father had decided to tell my mother that he was leaving and we would no longer have a home, we found out that he had plans to move in with someone else and to leave my mother and I with the choice of either going to a woman's shelter or else to move to Pennsylvania with my grandparents and my mother's brother. We had only weeks to pack and ended up leaving most everything behind. We had to leave our animals all but our dogs, we were lucky to get our clothes, some furniture and our art supplies and a few other odds and ends.

For the next two years my mother and I worked retail jobs just trying to make ends meet while living with my grandparents and uncle. During this time I was more or less unable to draw anything but sketches mainly due to lack of time. I was working and taking classes, trying help us dig our way out of this situation and get on our feet.

Then the realization of the passed eighteen years had all sunk in all at once. The fact that it was all indeed fact and that it all did happen hit me like a wave that seemed relentless in pulling me deeper. Like waking up from a terrible nightmare and knowing it was far from a dream and all far too real. It seemed also, that every time there was any hope for my mother and I, that when there look as though there was some way out that was so close and within reach and then we struggled and fought we would just fall back even further. I had become tired of having hope and only have it end up being the thing that was burring me deeper when nothing else ever came of it. My depression became increasingly worse. I had excepted that this was the way of things for us and always would be. Until then, my mind had always dwelled in darkness and in death but I was always eventually able to pull something out of it, something beautiful, something meaningful, something sustaining. But not anymore, now there was just a hollow where vibrant colors and vivid images once lived. I was dead inside, there was nothing left, no hope, no drive, no reason. I spent all my free time closed up in my room looking through the websites of all the artists I admire. It was all I had left. I could no longer create but at least I could still have a piece of that world in some capacity.

The final blow was when my internet access was cut off due to a misunderstanding of waisting time and my last thread of any connection I had to the art world was cut. Until then, in some form at least I had always had art. Up until then there was still something in me that refused to surrender completely, some ember of a spark that still longed for the world of art. But once the only link I had left to my world was made inaccessible, simply put, I cracked. The little drama that was the emotional mess that was me was spilled. The next day my mother took me to our doctor at the clinic we went to and I was put on anti-depressants. They helped at least, but it was far from a cure. More like putting a pressure dressing on a severed limb.

I would live but there was still something inside that was disconnected.

I took some time off from work and over the next few months I was eventually able to draw again. A few sketches here and there, only a few small finished pieces but it was something at least. It was still difficult, but a few months after that I was able to attend an Anime fan group meeting where I met my first boyfriend and who is now my husband.

I began doing commissions again here and there and a few small conventions and I was eventually able to get off the depression medication and manage fairly well. When my soon to be husband and I moved in to our apartment together I started searching for conventional work to help with bills and my art was again put on hold. After more then a year with no luck and another little visit from depression due to not being able to work on my art and dwindling hope that I would ever be able to find a steady job not to mention the resulting feelings of worthlessness. We decided that we could manage as things were and that I would go back to working on my art full time.

Now at the age of twenty-three, I live, dare I say happily, in an apartment in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania with my dear husband, a Pomeranian, two box turtles, and a toad. I am now busily working at home on commissions as well as doing the occasional convention and art show. And, someday I hope to be able to open the little cafe art gallery that has been one of my most prevalent dreams. A sanctuary for the creative, a place to be able to offer free display space to artists and of course, a good cup of coffee.

The world of art has always been the greatest driving force in my life, even when I was no longer a contributing part of it. It has always been present in my mind, always a factor in the outcome of my decisions.

I could never truly abandon it even in what I thought were to be my last thoughts. Even though there were many times when I truly did not want to go on and other times I simply had no other choice then to continue. Despite it all, despite everything. I can now honestly say that I survived. I survived because of art.

As for this year, I have been focusing mainly on work for my up coming exhibit and reception in October.

It will be my first, and I do hope not last, solo showings. Although it has been quite the undertaking, I am looking forward to it greatly.