I need to have great music playing when I'm painting. It is essential to my art. When I listen to strong, edgy singers, I feel free to take risks in my work. My brushstrokes come alive with the energy and power I get from music.  I work to a wide range of musical artists, and especially rely on many in the Americana, Rock, Blues and Alternative Rock arenas to transport me to the mood I'm trying to convey on my canvases.

If music provides the tempo, giving my pictures their life-force, nature is my inspiration and my adored subject. My oil paintings are about vivid color and passionate, clear strokes with my brushes and palette knives.  I hope people seeing my art will want to embrace it in way; to feel the sensuality of the nature I am trying to portray. I am interested in capturing the mystery in our natural surroundings.

I live in Woodside, California, a place of great natural beauty; it's rolling hills, trees and sunshine inspire me every day. I appreciate my surroundings more so, having grown up in the cold and snow-laden town of Rochester, New York.  I graduated from Stanford University and cherished my semester overseas in the art heaven of Florence, Italy. I later graduated from Harvard Business School, but found my career in marketing intellectually stimulating, but not soul-satisfying.

After my children were born, my mother, California impressionist artist Carolyn Zaroff encouraged me to paint. I was fortunate to have studied privately for several years with master California painter Ning Hou.