Awarded the Jerry's Artarama Award by Megan Fontanella, curator, the Solomon R Guggenheim Museum
This seatless rocking chair where I nursed my two sons represents the joys and sorrows of motherhood. I stitched the dates of the births and miscarriages of my children on the linen draped across the arms of the chair.

In keeping with the theme of restraint, I limited my materials to four found items.

“Peggy’s Garden” is an ode to my recently deceased mother, an artist and farm girl who embraced, nature, color and life itself with passion and determination. Employing encaustics to create colors and shapes, I alternated surfaces of wood and fabric, painting and mono printing to contrast textures as I played with size, color and repetition. Images of Peggy, some half hidden, allow the seasons of her life to mimic the seasons of this garden.

As a child, I went on numerous nature walks and had many tea parties with my grandmother. Using acorns, milkweed pods and grasses, I transformed my grandmother's fine china.

(SOLD) A stained glass window collage incorporates the religious moments and images from my family's life, from altar boys and baptisms to weddings and the image of Notre Dame's Touchdown Jesus where my father attended college. My mother holding my baby brother, at the top, brings to mind the Madonna.

Inspired by the Ocean City beach badge pass from my late Uncle Bill. I incorporated the actual badge and mirrored the image in pencil and paper. PS I am a Jersey girl.

I wore my great grandmother's wedding dress exactly 100 years after she did. This piece incorporates a piece of the dress, photos from both our wedding days, pearls and lace.

An abstract portrait of our home

A nighttime portrait of the Squam Lake, New Hampshire, cabin where we spend a week every summer with extended family. Fittingly, the cabin's name is Nirvana.