Biography

I have been creating art ever since I was five years old, but it wasn't until I was a senior in high school that I realized I wanted to be an artist. That was the year when my first major acrylic painting, Garden, was selected to tour the state of NJ with the Teen Arts Festival. However, my fight for the arts as an important component in education started years before, when my friends and I petitioned to keep art and music in our high school curriculum. I went on to receive my BA in studio art and Spanish at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, PA. My concentration was in painting, but the liberal arts college allowed me the opportunity to explore media such as drawing, printmaking, sculpture, and photography. Psychology and sociology classes fueled my interest in people and culture and led to my major in Spanish.

During my Muhlenberg experience, I jumped at the opportunity to study abroad. I completed the advanced Spanish program at the Center for Cross-Cultural Studies in Sevilla, Spain during my junior year. Upon my return to the US with improved Spanish language skills, I found new doors opened for me in the arts. I was offered a job as program coordinator for a free summer art camp for inner city Latino middle school students, which fed my passion to make art accessible to everyone, especially youth. During my senior year, a series of my paintings inspired by Moorish design and my travels in Spain were exhibited at Muhlenberg. That same year, I passed the torch of Art Association president to a new leader so I had more time to train a team to go on a mission trip to Juarez, Mexico. There, I led the creation of a collaborative mural on the playground of a school depicting how education, and art, open doors of opportunity.

The MA in Community Arts program at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) taught me the term "Community Arts" that fits my life so perfectly. In Baltimore, while working towards my Masters, I served in AmeriCorps and was placed at Creative Alliance at the Patterson. There, I began teaching in a classroom setting and explored themes of identity and cultural diversity with youth. My AmeriCorps and Master's thesis was focused on connecting parents to their children and families to their communities through art activities such as the Kerplunk Out Front! Banner Project, the Amazing Grace Mosaic Project, and the Playground Tile Project.

Now, I am teaching after school art lessons at Inspired Minds Art Studio in NJ and recently completed the Stained Glass Mosaic Welcome Sign with youth at Reformation Lutheran Church. In January 2011, I will start as Project Coordinator at CITYarts Inc., an arts non-profit in New York City. CITYarts partners with schools to enable youth to design and create large-scale murals and mosaics that transform their communities.