I was awarded a CAAP Grant for the 2011 Grant Cycle. The Community Artists Assistance Program from the Chicago Ministry of Culture supports a variety of artists projects and made possible my participation in the Klein Artists Works Workshop.

Come and participate in the MDW Fair: visual arts landing in Chicago, April 23/24, 2011. Check out Peregrine Papers, a generous project by Peregrine Program, allowing people to walk away with an anonymous 4inx6in piece of art, you may get one of the ones that I made!

I was awarded the IL Arts Council Project Development Grant to be used towards the documentation of new work, to be completed before August 2011. Professional images of paintings on my website are supported by a grant from the IL Arts Council, a state agency.

Condition of Fire, a collection of poetry by JL Williams, has been released and one of my paintings was chosen for the cover. Please see the website Shearsman Books for more details.

Please join me and view some of my pieces in a group show:
November 2010-February 15, 2011, River Bank Lofts, 550 North Kingsbury Chicago, IL

Come bid on my painting, Life Force at:

MAKING WAVES
A silent art auction benefiting Recovery on Water, a rowing team empowering breast cancer survivors. Curated by Alison Rhoades & Angela Bryant, Abryant Gallery, Friday, July 23, 2010

I will be one of the artists participating in the Hyde Park Art Center's Open Crit Program, Friday May 28 from 6-8pm.
www.hydeparkart.org

Juror Sabina Ott selected two pieces, Rupture and Womb, to be in the Ann Metzger Memorial Exhibit in St. Louis, opening Jan 24, 2010, from 1-2pm and closing Mar 19, at the St. Louis Artists' Guild.
www.stlouisartistsguild.org

See Squish in person spring 2010, as it has been chosen by juror Paul Klein to appear in Art from the Heartland, at the Indianapolis Art Center, Indianapolis, IN, Feb 2010-April 2010.
www.IndplsArtCenter.org

I started a blog documenting my process of making a painting, please visit if you are curious about how painting happens....
artediem

I wrote the following Letter to the Editor in response to the Wellesley Winter Magazine regarding the arts. It was published in the Spring/Summer 2009 issue:

I was thrilled to see a cover of the Magazine address the Arts. As economic times grow harder and we begin to admit that time tested political, social and economic systems are not working, there is no time like the present to acknowledge that we need some inspired, creative, imaginative perspectives on our national and global problems. Teaching the arts is about teaching people how to be culture creators. What is the culture we live in now? What is good about it? How can we change what is not? Artists often challenge social norms and prejudices, appealing to people to shift their point of view and reconsider the limited reality that they have created for themselves. Art is about the communication of ideas beyond scientific experiments, the ideas of the human experience. Art might not cure cancer, but it can address the loss of a loved one, the fear of death, or confront ideas about the heath care system, and bring people together for a discussion or experience about the disease who might not even speak the same language. In the world we live in today, the power of art is profound and of the utmost importance. We need the arts more than ever right now. Please support your local arts organizations; we risk loosing many and that would be truly tragic.