ARTIST BIOGRAPHY I remember the first time I knew I wanted to be an artist.    I was five years old and had been given a bag of soft clay as a present.   Feeling exhilarated over having received such a marvelous gift, I set to work trying to create an Indian maiden.    It seemed like I spent forever rolling and pulling the clay trying without any success whatsoever to imprint what was in my mind onto the medium in front of me.    Finally, completely discouraged, I broke down sobbing.    My mother approached me and asked what was wrong.    She carefully took the clay from me and with the aid of some toothpicks fashioned what appeared to be the most beautiful Indian maiden I had ever seen.    I carefully took the sculpture from her convinced that it was alive.    I remember how special it felt, to have the ability to create such a magical object.    Right there on the spot I knew I wanted to be a sculptor, for what could be more perfect than creating objects which became alive?    At the same time I became obsessed with fairytales and read them voraciously.    I would take weekly walks to the library in search of new books.    I still remember my despair when one day I realized that I had read every fairytale book in stock. My work in sculpture continued throughout my childhood with the sandstone found in a local field.    When I went to college I majored in Art Education and began more ambitious works in plaster and then hydrocal.    It was the 60s and the theme was exploration.    I traveled to Europe and then moved out to California. At this point I was making large sculptures which had a raw visionary quality and whose colors were influenced by the rich Hispanic Culture of Southern California. But my sculptures were not easily marketable in the surf and sea consciousness of San Diego, although I did succeed in getting my first One Woman Show at the Unicorn Gallery in La Jolla. Instead of fairy tales, I was now reading Jung and Campbell and I had heard of a new possibility of a career path for myself - Art Therapy.    In the year of the bicentennial I traveled east again with the purpose of attending graduate school at Pratt in Brooklyn. I received my graduate degree in Art Therapy in 1982 and I became aware of the healing and transformative role that art had played in my life and became eager to use it with others. Since that time I have worked in the field of art therapy in every way imaginable, helping clients become more connected to their inner feeling states.    My own art work has evolved in response to the shifting situations in my own life, for example, when my twin sister was diagnosed with breast cancer I made angels to help us both through the process of her illness. Currently, it feels as if I’ve come full circle, with my work again reflecting the fairy tales of my childhood.    I continue to create magical beings and imagine them to be imbued with a kind of elan vital - awaiting discovery by the observer. END