BIO

My room as a child was filled with prints of the ballet paintings of Degas (becoming a ballet dancer was my first and most cherished dream growing up); during my adolescence, Picasso’s “The Old Guitarist” from his blue period hung on my bedroom wall. I took lessons in art, piano, ballet, and modern dance. In my early adult years, my apartments were always filled with posters featuring the art of Monet, Manet, and Georgia O’Keefe.

In the many lives I lived before starting to paint in 2011, I have enjoyed a wide-ranging career from lingerie fit model to Chi Gong instructor. I started out after college at Holt Rinehart & Winston (a division of CBS) where I learned the art of editing and proofreading – and became a friendly feminist as an active as a member of the Women’s Advisory Council (created in the corporation’s attempt to stave off lawsuits from women in their broadcast division), representing the interests of women in my division to top management. Along the way I moved into the magazine division of CBS, becoming editor of several astrology and occult magazines. I soon left the 9 to 5 life to cultivate a free lance career. Among the many strands of my professional life included free lance proofreader and editor, New Age editor (of the New York Section of The Whole Life Times) and columnist (Spirit of Change Magazine), astrological consultant and teacher.

Always a writer and poet (self-publishing seven chapbooks of poetry with poems, articles and interviews appearing in over 20 publications), I also co-hosted two poetry readings in Brooklyn. I have studied and taught yoga and Chi Gong, and continue to practice T’ai Chi.

With my chess-playing photographer/poet husband, Tom Oleszczuk, we have created a life here that includes an active protection of the local waters, working with the Blue Water Task Force of Surfrider (testing several bay beaches in Sag Harbor and Noyack and a pond in North Sea). We also stand with our Shinnecock neighbors and friends as allies, hoping to deepen the understanding of others about their deep history and guardianship of the land we all live on together.

In our home in Noyack, we have a print of Joan Mitchell and originals by John Todaro, Michael Harrison, Kathryn Szoka, Ellie Winberg, and an oil painting of a beach by my grandmother who was a “copyist.”