I was born in Toledo, Ohio. That's me and my sister being read to by our mom (I'm the ham on the left). It was the beginning of a love affair with books. You can also see me later, intently studying my favorite pop-up book. It was about Noah's Ark. I took an early interest in the Toledo Museum of Art--where I first got my interest in museums--which, you will see later, figure quite prominently in my life.

From Ohio we moved to upstate New York where I attended a series of elementary and secondary schools during my family's moves around the state. I went to college at the State University of New York College at Buffalo, right across the street from the Albright-Knox Art Gallery--a fabulous place in which to spend countless hours. Knowing I wanted to study graphic design, I also interned for a while at the Charles Burchfield Center which is on the Buffalo State campus. Burchfield's watercolors are wonderful--you should look him up if you aren't already familiar with his work. http://www.burchfield-penney.org/ceb/

After graduating with a degree in graphic design, I promptly left the east coast and flew to the sunny southern California mecca of Los Angeles. It was quite different from Ohio. I came at the invitation of my favorite Aunt Helen, and lived with her family for awhile. After a short two-year stint doing production work for a publishing house in the San Fernando Valley, I landed a position at the venerable Los Angeles County Museum of Art. I worked my way up to book design in the design department and loved every day I went to work. Book design seemed to me to be the most challenging yet rewarding work to be doing. I also designed exhibition graphics for installations and worked with many talented and inspiring people in the almost ten years I was there.

The short story of how I came to Utah is this: My old Buffalo college roommate and her sister and I planned a weekend trip to Zion Canyon leaving from Los Angeles. It happened to be on April 26, 1992, a day that lives in infamy--the beginning of the Rodney King riots in LA. While much of LA burned we fled to the solace of Zion. While here, we all met Michael, who later became my husband. He is a photographer and I fell in love twice--with Michael and the canyon. It wasn't long after that we married and I relocated and began my freelance design practice. Leaving the museum was difficult, but this is a place I now call home and I love the solitude of working on big book projects from my home studio.

In 1998, we built our home/studios and live here with our dog, Sadie, and our cat, Annabelle Lee.

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