How long have you been creating?

Always. Like all children, I liked to draw and make pretty things and glue stuff together. I'm pretty much doing the same thing now.

What is your media of choice?

Right now I enjoy working in mixed media mosaic and assemblage. I use beads, jewels and embellishments—sparkly things.

What are you motivations for creating?

I'm motivated by beautifully tactile objects like I played with in my mother's jewelry box as a kid. And I am obsessed with the human condition—our lot in life. I like to try to get feelings down on paper, so to speak. Poetry is my main inspiration. My favorite poets right now are Wislawa Szymborska, Emily Dickinson, Philip Larkin and Rainer Maria Rilke. Certain lines of poetry create images in my head.

What other artists or movements inform your work?

I absolutely love the mixed media, mosaic, and assemblage artists I see every day on the web. Laurie Mika, Michael Demeng, and Robin Urton have been strong influences for me in the last few years. Louise Bourgeois is my favorite artist of all time, overtaking Salvador Dali in the last decade or so.

What do you find visually stimulating right now?

After years of painting and drawing, I'm now drawn to 3-D art... assemblage and collage like fellow EBSQ artists Shawn Marie Hardy and John Borrero are doing. Doll heads on birdcages, found object art, shrines, non-traditional mosaic. And I love outsider art.

Read anything good lately?

"Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" by Jonathan Safran Foer is the best book I have ever read besides Dickens. Astounding. But right now I am reading "The Terror Dream: Fear and Fantasy in Post 9/11 America" by Susan Faludi.

Any art-related "resolutions" as we look forward to 2008?

Only to let what I'm doing now mutate into whatever I'll be doing later!

What would you like your fellow EBSQ artists and our collectors to know about you and/or your work?

I have, as an artist, worn many hats for 30-plus years. Now, it seems I have found a style that is completely my own. I hope you enjoy it.