About the Artist

I am a contemporary painter. People who see my work talk about its vivid color, intriguing texture, and image-based abstraction that convey mystery and movement. I’ve exhibited my paintings in solo, juried, and group exhibitions throughout the United States, and my artwork is held in public and private collections in the U.S. and abroad.

I was born in Hartford, Conn., and moved to Santa Barbara, Calif., at the age of 5. As a teenager I lived in Rochester, NY, before my family came to settle in Austin, Texas. I received my BFA in studio art with an emphasis in painting and drawing from the University of Texas at Austin. In 1987, I married my husband (composer Jonathan Santore) and we moved to Los Angeles while he completed his Ph.D. at UCLA. We then lived in Minneapolis for a year before moving to Plymouth, NH, where we’ve lived since 1994.

I’ve always known that I would be an artist. I was fortunate to grow up in a home with real art in it. A college friend of my parents, Robert George, was an abstract-expressionist painter—his works in our home were inspirational for me, not only visually, but in showing that “artist” was a real job, something I could actually grow up to be. Travel has also been inspiring for me—I have been privileged to have travelled extensively throughout the United States and Europe, seeing art by the masters in the great museums and by local “unknown” artists, and having the opportunity to experience different attitudes, cultures, climates, and ways of life.

Art has always been a part of who I am and I’ve never stopped making art, not even during the hardest times in my life. I’ve held lots of different jobs—as most artists do—but no matter how demanding my “for money” work has been, I have always continued to paint, to explore and discover, and to advocate for my work by exhibiting and selling work whenever I can. In 2007, I left my last “office job” as editor of a university magazine to focus more fully on my art career. This decision, while financially difficult, has let me develop my work further, to exhibit much more widely, and to place more pieces with individual and corporate collectors.

I can’t wait to see what happens next.