Garden Design:
I was trained as a textile artist and garden designer during the 1980s. I viewed landscape gardening as a powerful form of artistic expression. Gardens are an ever-changing canvas of color, form, texture and scent. They are a living artistic expression, the embellishment and ever-changing details of the design are most satisfying when viewed as a series of seasonal artworks. Gardening, as painting, is a process; each of its creative moments to be cherished.
I was fortunate enough to have the ability to design some truly luxurious landscapes; romantic and theatrical spaces where I lived. This is a Boxwood Parterre that was viewed in this photo from a balcony off the second floor of the house. This particular property had several gardens connected by formally clipped hedges.
The next garden photo is from the same property. The pergola and pool area were designed to relate to the Georgian stone house with Tuscan columns. Each of the separate garden areas related to one another and were designed to be their most glorious during their period of use. This pool garden had beautiful Casablanca lilies that flowered in July and large pots overflowing with colorful annuals beneath the pergola, providing brilliant color the entire summer.
My gardens were published in the following publications:
American Border Gardens, by Melanie Fleischmann, 1993
A Garden for Cutting, by Margaret Parke, 1993
Secret Gardens, by Rosemary Verey, 1994 
House Beautiful, "A Gallery of Gardens", June 1995
The Collector's Garden, by Ken Druse, 1996
House & Garden, "A Fine Weave", June 2003
Inside Out, by Page Dickey, 2000
Martha Stewart Living, February
Smithsonian Institute (online): Archives of American Gardens, Wildflower Farm, Bedford, NY
Textile Design:
In the 1980s I often dressed in ethnic costumes and was astonished by the beautiful dyeing in these pieces, especially the Japanese kimonos. I wanted to learn these dyeing techniques so I studied Shibori, Japanese resist dyeing, with Yoshiko Wada, who co-authored the English book on Shibori. Around 1987 I began to study Japanese stencil-dyeing, Katazome, with Eisha Nakano who had written the only English book on Katazome at that time. Katazome is a paste resist process utilizing cooked rice bran and rice flour paste that is squeezed through a stencil covering the negative space of a textile design. The fabric that had been blocked from the application of the paste by the stencil is then dyed. In Japan, each part of the Katazome process is performed by a person trained to do that unique part of the process. For example, there were stencil designers and cutters and other people who were the dyers. Eisha taught us to do every aspect of the Katazome process. Katazome stencil-dyeing is an artform that was probably developed during the Heian period in Japan. It is a labor intensive technique used traditionally to dye kimonos. My designs were not traditional Japanese designs but instead were influenced by the colors and textures of my gardens.
Over time, I altered my dyeing technique so that I could dye suede, shearling and upholstery leathers. I made these designs using a direct application of dyes through my hand cut stencils. The example on the left is made this way and is a detail of a Toscana shearling throw with hand-stenciled autumn leaf pattern detailed with gold leaf.
Because of the opulent materials, I also incorporated Ottoman and Renaissance patterns. All throws and stenciled leathers were hand-made in my studio in Bedford Hills, NY. Eventually we also made hand-stenciled shearling wearables such as capes, collars and stoles.
In 2004 I started exploring portraiture. In 2007 I stopped making the textiles and concentrated completely on my figurative drawing and painting. Although I am largely self-taught and do not have formal art school training, my work has been informed by workshops with Steven Assael, Antonia Ramis-Miguel, Dina Brodsky, Ismael Checo and Alan Reingold. Recently, I began to work with encaustics (painting with pigmented wax) and mixed media, which I learned from Gregory Wright. Although this is a new area for me, I have included encaustic mixed media pieces in my website. I love the texture and luminescent quality of the wax. I find it to be a wonderful way to show the coloration and depth of the atmosphere and of flesh.