Artwork

In high school I escaped Spanish 3 after first semester for Beginning Art, and began my flirtation with formal art-making and study. As a youth I had taken several art classes at Castro Valley's Adobe Art Center, and Chabot College's College for Kids summer program, so I didn't consider myself a beginner, but during that spring I began to look at art critically, and think about technique and theory. My senior year I took black & white photography, continuing the education of my artistic eye. I loved my art studies so much that I knew I wanted to major in art at college.

At Westmont College in Santa Barbara (Montecito, really), I took every art class offered, studying under John Carlander, Tony Askew, Susan Savage, and Jill Vanderhoof, and earned a Bachelor's of Art in Art.

Then, save a year of architectural study in Boston, and a couple of forays into book design, I did little artwork for fifteen years.

My main creative focus was writing, and the rest of my energies went into my family, and my career as an educator. My return to art-making began in the summer of 2013. Besides a few pieces of art we had framed for home decor, my pieces slumbered, forgotten in a shipping crate at my father's work. After he retired, the chest was returned to us, and going through the stacks of work I had created years ago kindled the desire to create artwork again. My gallery at Artist Rising, Studio JEK then will begin with choice selections from my college art education, and then expand with new works as they are created.