Meet the Artist

I create photographs that reveal the secret lives of flowers and pollinators. Since moving to Northern California, my work has become almost hyper-local, because the variety and richness these life forms have in my own neighborhood continue to enthrall me. It almost feels like I live in a botanical garden that’s spread out across everyone’s yards.

When a flower calls to me, it is typically because of a small detail that catches my attention and won’t let go. It could be a tiny compelling shape, a sparkle, a texture, or some combination of features that say, “come here, look closer!” When this happens, it becomes my mission to find a way to capture the trigger that drew me to that flower in a way that honors the goosebumps I felt when I first made a connection with it.

Sometimes one of these “come hither” flowers will call to me from inside a neighbor’s yard and I’ll ask permission to use it as one of my subjects. I might then bond with that flower for months, or occasionally years, because so many things have to be just right to make these pictures turn out the way I see them in my mind. It’s fun to make a connection with that neighbor later when I go back and surprise them with a card of their flower.

Other times I find flowers in local nurseries or flower shops. In keeping with the hyper-local theme of my current work, I bring those flowers home and shoot them right in the bedroom I share with my dog, where I have a small photography studio set up on a table.

After accurately recording the spark that connected me to a particular flower, it brings me great joy to share the marvelous worlds I see inside of them with other people. These two ways of finding my subjects have offered endless possibilities both for sharing nature’s secret beauty with others and meeting wonderful neighbors.

Awards

Gallery 4% Online Competition Anything & Everything: 2025 – Distinction Award
San Mateo County Fair: 2025 – Exhibitor-of-the-Year Award, Best-in-Show, 1st Place, Dischler Award/1st Place
Ten Moir Online Gallery Botanicals Competition: 2025 – Best in Show
Wham Art Association (Surprise, AZ) Square Dare: 2025 – 3rd Place
Jewish Community Center, Richmond, VA: 2018 – 2nd Place
Crossroads Art Center, Richmond, VA: 2016 – 1st Place
National Arts Program through VCU Medical Center, Richmond, VA: 2011 – Best in Show; 2012 – 1st Place in Professional Category

Solo Shows

Café Zata (Richmond, VA) – 3 shows
Downtown Library (Richmond, VA) – 2 shows
Radiation/Oncology department of Virginia Commonwealth University Health System
Thompson-McCaw Library on VCU’s Health Sciences Campus – 2 shows
VCU Hospital main area – 2 shows

Publications

Between Rounds: The Poetic Voice of the Department of Internal Medicine VCU Health Center (print publication): 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008