The arts have always been an interest of me. In various stages in my life the focus was either on performing or visual arts, sometimes more active in management, fundraising or teaching, and at times more in making art myself.

I have been fortunate to have lived in, and travel to, many different places in the world and everywhere I lived a different situation and (work)opportunity presented itself to me.

Before I moved back to Amsterdam five years ago, I had lived in the USA where I studied, and worked in, interior design. It appeared to be a bad time and environment to start my own business in that field here in The Netherlands and I decided to take some time to pick up making my own mixed media work again. I also wanted to frame my own work professionally and started to take classes from various experienced frame makers, which I loved more than anticipated. During a period of time I was lucky enough to gain experience on the job at Amsterdam Art Center. There really is no professional education for frame makers in The Netherlands, but I decided to start my own business and by challenging myself I gained a lot of experience. There are some very good frame makers in Amsterdam which all have their own expertise, and I found a few of them very willing to share their tricks of the trade and some of them have become wonderful colleagues.  Last summer branche association Art-Frame organized an small scale, but pretty intense instruction day, which I attended and I am looking forward to more of those days in the future.

My Story

Recently I have felt the strong need to make my own mixed media work again and I decided to make small collages with the buddha's and amulets that I brought from Thailand some years ago, and were waiting their turn in a closed box. I wanted to give them their own niche and started to mount each of them in a 3D deepened mat and frame. Throughout the years I have assembled many different materials, which I started to incorporate in the collages and it was pure delight to be working with it all again. The pieces are all unique and I am getting very positive reactions! I think it might be because everyone could use a little Zen these days.......