About
Stone Carving Workshop at Sandwich Fine Craft Gallery
Sandwich, New Hampshire, 2021 (Photo by Paula Doyle)
About My Studio
My public studio exists online as a store and gallery. It is also a venue for providing education and resources to stone carvers and sharing my personal experience with art and life. I work in my backyard under a simple canopy. Having re-settled in Arizona from New Hampshire, I can carve year-round amid the flora and fauna of the Southwest.
About Me
As a child, I was fascinated with making things from wood and clay. Now, creating stone art keeps me grounded in a timeless, ancient world. People and animals – often bears and owls – are my favorite subjects. I have sold over 500 mosaics and carvings, and my work can be found in six Zen temples, an art museum, and many private collections.
I love teaching, encouraging people to explore their creativity. Students find me patient, earthy and unpretentious. Over this long life, I’ve had many professions, including journalist, editor, literacy tutor, mental health counselor, art teacher and ordained Zen Buddhist Dharma teacher.
Both of my parents were creative. I grew up mostly in New England, but we moved often due to my father’s career. My major studies at Mt. Holyoke College were philosophy and creative writing, followed by a Master’s degree from Boston University in counseling and vocational rehabilitation. I worked in several college counseling centers and was a reporter for two daily papers.
In 1968, I married a German immigrant who pursued a doctorate in environmental health. We had two daughters and moved to New Hampshire to start a vineyard. When a serious illness forced me to leave, my recovery focused on art school classes in the Boston area. In 1980, I began carving stone and moved into a Zen Buddhist temple in Rhode Island.
Since then, I have traveled extensively in the U.S., going from summer teaching in Provincetown’s art colony to winter studios in Arizona. I have often felt like an ancient herder moving animals to seasonal pastures. Fond of silence and solitude, I find the weather in Tucson perfect for carving stone outdoors all year long.
