Raven, Raven Installation

An only child, and member of a military family, I moved quite frequently when I was young. The absence of siblings left me with plenty of time (and quiet…) to wander around in the landscape of my observations, thoughts, and ideas. Every time my family moved, my unusual first name (pronounced Lady Anne) stumped teachers and threw my new classmates into spasmodic giggling fits. That odd combination of experiences led me to deeply appreciate my imagination as both generative and protective. I attended a school of the arts in high school, and started my undergraduate education as an opera performance major, but quickly became more interested conveying ideas through written and visual mediums. I took drawing and creative writing courses during college, and graduated Magna Cum Laude, with a Bachelor of Science degree in Communications, for which I received additional honors for completion of my senior thesis. After graduating from college I worked in marketing for a short time until 2000, when I began my career as a freelance writer, photographer, and artist. In 2010, I entered Goddard College as a graduate student in the school’s Interdisciplinary Arts program. During the course of that journey my visual and word-based work coalesced into what is now a creative practice through which I tell stories through the medium of picture books. I am fascinated by the power of illustrations, both simple and complex, to capture imaginations, convey ideas, and connect individuals and populations. Since beginning graduate school, the content of my work has centered on ideas of place, identity, communication, culture, and community, with a particular emphasis on the search for inclusion, understanding, and connection, and I see illustrations as particularly powerful ways of reaching into, and unpacking, those concepts. As I move forward in my work, I seek to deepen my understanding of, and approach to, storytelling through richly layered amalgams of words and images.