A CAREER IN EDUCATION
I am also (and primarily) a full professor and Associate Dean of the Michael Graves College, Kean University, USA and Wenzhou-Kean University, China. Before taking on the beast of administration in higher education, I taught art and design for over 25 years, including courses in the fundamentals of form and color, design theory, materials and techniques, and creative thinking as well as guiding a web design curriculum at its inception. The latter belongs in Ripley’s “Believe It or Not.”
In my career as Executive Director and currently Associate Dean, I am proud to be the facilitator implementing the faculty’s grand plans to grow and enrich the many innovative programs of study within the Robert Busch School of Design in the Michael Graves College. There are many fulfilling activities completed but several are outstanding in my mind: having Michael Graves accept an invitation to contribute to the vision and curriculum at Kean and then allowing for his name to identify our college, being involved on the ground floor (literally ground-breaking) of the establishment of the Sino-American partnership of Wenzhou-Kean University, China, and most obviously proud of helping our students grow and launch meaningful and fulfilling careers.
My work roams through landscape and seascapes, still life, and interior scenes, and at times pure abstraction thereof. Through the use primarily of colored pencil, as well as etching, mixed media, collage, and found objects, I look to convey a lived visual experience that engages viewers imaginations and emotions through vivid texture, saturated color, and evocative formal detail. The subject matter is stylized naturally yet expressively, and at times intertwined with notes of the super real, the abstract, or surreal.
Each piece invites viewer to feel — to reach beyond literal meaning to engage and heighten their senses and prompt memories of their own experiences.
The mediums I use—pencil, printmaking, and handmade paper collage executed with a strong emphasis on the element of line- have graphic qualities that lend themselves to a surface texture meant to be reminiscent of cross-crossing threads of fabric, a metaphor of sorts for the intricate spiritual connection I perceive woven between nature, myself, my history, art-making and creation. In this way, my art may serve to invite contemplation and reflection on the interconnectedness of all things, at best. Or, simply heighten awareness of the wonderful textures and colors of nature and moments of its delightful beauty.
