I am an elementary art teacher and freelance artist. My students’ enthusiasm for the natural world has helped to revitalize my own. I often draw inspiration from photographs I’ve taken at various parks, wildlife refuges, zoos, aquariums, and gardens. When I paint, I am striving to capture the unique personality of each object and creature; some are beautiful, some are strange, and some are beautifully strange. Many artists choose to anthropomorphize animals, but I most enjoy the peculiarities that make them so distinct from humans.