I am a Licensed Professional Counselor Candidate (Colorado) and Creative Practice Coach with a passion for working with visual artists, writers, poets, musicians, filmmakers, dancers, choreographers, performing artists, designers, and artists engaged in emergent creative disciplines.  I am a visual artist and writer who believes that creative expression can be a way to engage the healing process and help us make meaning in this tumultuous world. I also believe in the power of experiencing diverse forms of art and culture, created by other artists, as a kind of medicine.  Both the creative process and the emotional healing process have the potential to foster empowerment, compassion, and transformation.

I received my MA in Mental Health Counseling from Northwestern University, my MFA in Visual Art from Rutgers University, and my BFA in Visual Studies from Iowa State University.  Before attending Northwestern I spent fifteen years teaching studio art and cultural studies courses at colleges and universities across the United States.  My counseling research and interests focus on artist identity, creative practice, and the unique well-being needs of artists and creative folks.  In a broader sense, my interests related to being human and all that entails, include: finding purpose and making meaning; relationships and friendships; loss and grief; fertility and infertility; prenatal, pregnancy, and postnatal experiences; motherhood and parenthood; career and livelihood; spirituality; and navigating sensitivities.  

In my practice working with counseling clients, I draw on psychodynamic, humanistic, and trauma-informed approaches to therapy, paired with creative and poetic strategies.  Looking through a holistic lens—contexts, systems, identities—always informs the work, as well.  I am awed by the expansiveness of the human experience, including the traumas and the joys, and I celebrate the curiosity and strength that is an innate part of the therapeutic process with all my clients.  It is an honor and privilege to work in collaboration with folks diving into the deep for both personal and collective healing.