Slide Show:  The NO! Collection, 2017

Excited to announce a new Partnership with SWAN - the Service Women's Action Network- a non-profit agency dedicated to supporting service women and female veterans. Art work is scheduled to display at the Convention Center in Washington, D.C. (K Street) at the SWAN Summit held in November, 2017 and at the Women's Memorial at the National Cemetery. I am so grateful for these opportunities and looking forward to serving on the mental health panel at the summit. Thank you SWAN!

​NO!  
​​i am not an artist by profession. by profession, i evaluate united states military veterans for PTSD. over the course of hundreds of interviews with the men and women who have so bravely served our country, a disturbing trend has emerged.

approximately 90% of the women i evaluate have been raped. many brutally raped and not by the enemy, by their fellow countrymen, other u.s. soldiers. the military has a name for this. MST. Military Sexual Trauma.

the stories I hear are graphic, violent, horrific, devastating. the people I evaluate are brave, but broken. the dichotomy is hard to process.

this degree of trauma, raw and unprocessed, transfers psychologically between people. the artwork here is my way of processing what i hear. i feel the veteran's emotions but the emotions don't belong to me; i need a way to release the pain and despair and anger transferred to me by the client. the are it abstract but each painting stems from the story of a particular veteran.
​
i invite you to come in, jump down, deeper and deeper into the dark. their stories are there, hidden, echoing in the silence because no one talks about it, not even to each other. the art here is how i cope with the echo. the message i invite you to spread. the message is NO!

Go to Gallery Stills