I was born and raised in Georgia by a steelworker father and an artistic mother who encouraged fearless creativity and a love of nature. As the youngest surprise of 5 children, I spent a lot of time with my Mom. Side by side with my Mom, we religiously attended Yellow Daisy and Dogwood Festivals, oooing and aaahing over the latest unique artists and buying what we could afford (and sometimes couldn’t afford!)
I was a good student and intended to be a doctor, but after taking a ceramics class in college (at my Mom’s insistence), I decided to pursue an entirely different life. I worked as a paramedic in Gwinnett County, where I met my first husband, and created 2 masterpieces… my daughter Sarah Beth and son Jackson. I left the fire department in Gwinnett County to raise my children and renewed my love for creating art, starting my first business as an artist in 2004, Sparkle Plenty Art. When the marriage crumbled, I had to decide if I would double down and make my living as an artist, or look for a “normal”, more secure job.
I met and eventually married my soulmate, Chuck Hanes, another local artist and together we created Beauty and Beast Art and later Chicken Tracks Art Ranch. We enjoyed collaborating on art projects and teaching teens about art as a way to express big emotions. In our down time, we spent a lot of time hiking, camping and exploring nature together. He passed away suddenly and unexpectedly in 2021 on his 61st birthday, just as we were coming out of the shutdowns from the pandemic.
For a while, I tried to create the art that he and I had been making together, but was feeling uninspired and overwhelmed. In my grief, I returned to the comfort of nature and began assembling my collections of bits of moss, sticks, bones into intricate mixed media sculptures. Combined with my love for sculpting faces, the Freaks of Nature were born. As they evolved, I realized that this art was feeding my soul and rejuvenating my spirit…my heart is still broken with loss, but I find joy in creating art again.
From art festivals all around the southeast, a couple of storefronts, active membership in my local art guild and gallery, wholesale and commission sales to private galleries, and teaching… I have made my living as an artist for over 20 years.
I especially love teaching “outside the box” people. From 10 years of running the summer pottery studio at Camp Twin Lakes ( a camp for adults and children with serious illnesses, disabilities, and other life challenges) and teaching a community funded art program for alternative school students in Morgan County since 2008, to private workshops, after school art programs, and summer art camps, I love sharing my experiences with art with everyone.
Artist Statement
Clay is my language, and nature is my co-conspirator.
I sculpt to explore the wildness within and around me. From functional pottery that cradles daily ritual to mixed media figures adorned with bones, feathers, bark, and rusted relics, my work reflects an ongoing conversation between human expression and the natural world. I am drawn to faces—mysterious, raw, expressive—across ages, ethnicities, and imagined histories. Each one tells a story that feels ancient and immediate, familiar and strange.
My latest body of work, Freaks of Nature, is a celebration of imperfection, survival, and beauty in unexpected places. I begin by hand-sculpting expressive faces in clay, then assemble them with natural materials I’ve gathered over decades—some offered by friends, most found while wandering woods and riverbanks. These pieces are part sculpture, part memory. Each item I incorporate—shells, bones, rusted tools, pinecones—evokes a sense of place, person, or moment, and reminds me of my own small place within the vast system of the earth.
Raised by a mother who taught me to make fearlessly and listen closely to the world around me, I carry her teachings into every piece I create. Art, to me, is not only a solitary act but a form of connection: to self, to others, to something larger.
Through teaching—whether with children at summer camps, alternative schools, or adults in my home studio—I share the same spirit of exploration and trust in the creative process that has shaped my own journey. I believe art can heal, ground, provoke, and invite us home to ourselves.
My work is both artifact and offering. It asks: What does it mean to belong to the land? What stories live in found things? And how do we carry the wild with us, even in clay?
Freaks of Nature Collection
As an artist, I have always been most inspired by nature and by my mother, who fearlessly experimented with arts and crafts and spent much time outdoors teaching me about nature and the world around us. I have always been a collector of interesting things, and in my 50+ years, I have found treasures in every little thing—collecting, gathering, envisioning how these things might find their way into art, into story. The beauty and uniqueness in a bit of lush moss, a gnarled stick, a delicate and sun-bleached vertebra of a deer and even a rusty old piece of twisted wire--it all delights me!
Some items I use have been given to me, but mostly I use things I find when exploring. Some treasures have been in my possession since I was a kid and some were picked up only months ago. The treasures that I use conjure up memories of places I have been and people I have met along the way, but mostly they remind me that I am also a tiny piece of this complex earth and that I belong to something much larger.
I hope you enjoy my creations, and I hope you pause to notice the beauty all around us.
