Artist/Designer Statement

As a practicing designer and educator, I see no boundaries between design education and creative design practice, and consider both education and practice a critical part of any interdisciplinary approach in the creative arts. I see myself as a designer/educator first, and for me the challenges of specific disciplines are what keeps my process and my work fresh and exciting, and ultimately much more successful whether designer or instructor. I believe my history and evolution in life are the foundations from which I have drawn my design approach and sensitibilities. Thus this statement contains a biographical narrative as the foundation of my artist/designer statement:

I have been exposed to creative thinking as problem solving since my early childhood, having been raised by parents who were an engineer and artist. Their modes of thinking encouraged me to use both sides of my brain to create and to problem solve. I always had a passion for modern expressed architectural structure and the furnishing of structures: architecture, furniture design, auto design, interior design, photography, advertising and textiles were early interests. I was drawing and drafting at a very early age, from homes to graphics, and was influenced by the formal qualities I observed in film, advertising and everything around me. I was interested in how they captured trend, lifestyle, and culture to create experiential responses, environments, and understanding.

After graduating from high school, I worked to raise money to pursue a creative degree while studying marketing and communications college courses. I have held a variety of positions from union apprenticeship to become a welder to a hospital management liaison between administration and support service employees. All the time I experimented with paint, photography, sculpture, furniture design and constructions, with influences from these seamingly unrelated jobs. I was fortunate to make friendships with a number of architects, designers and artists at the time who were influential in my desire to pursue a creative direction in my life and work. This finally led me to apply to the Architecture Program at the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee (UWM), taking a summer introductory course in the school of architecture.

I found the Architecture program restrictive and wanted to develop a more open and inclusive approach to creativity and problem solving. At that time, I was introduced to the UWM Fine Arts program by a fiber artist and educator who encouraged me to apply to their new school of design. This program had three degree major tracks which included Interior Design, Graphic Design, and Product/Industrial Design. I took an introductory Plein Air Printing studio and never looked back. By sophomore evaluations I had taken all the base studio courses in all three disciplines and presented a complete installation of my work, which included lighting control, work presentation, graphic support, and narrative sequencing. The team of professors and graduate students asked me why I spent so much time on the presentation itself, and I responded that the presentation was as much a part of the work for their evaluation as the content. I don’t see creativity only as the beginning and solution-making as an end; each point in the process is an opportunity to design and problem solve.

Students were to choose a specific discipline after the review, but I insisted I be allowed to study all three disciplines even though that was not an option for the degree program. Backed by a supportive chairman and faculty I was instrumental in the school's creation of a special BFA in Design with a triple sub-major, as a way to do advanced coursework in all three disciplines while earning one degree.

Upon graduation I applied to modernist corporate Chicago A&D firms and landed a position with Swanke, Hayden, Connell, where I worked on a wide range of projects that extended from law firms to airline headquarters. At that time designers were specializing, whereas I was generalizing, bringing my interior, graphic and industrial design skills to bear on projects. I went from there to Eva Maddox Associates, where my process was better understood. Eva was a pioneer in an interdisciplinary design approach, and my intuitive skills in creating visual narrative and experiential design were invaluable assets for her work in showroom and corporate design.

From EMA with the encouragement of another mentor in business, I ventured out on my own, creating my first collaborative design studio. I have worked on projects large and small, locally and around the world, and after three rebrandings my practice is now 27 years old. I have created everything from complete brand rollouts, to new-construction homes, to extending the definition of Branded Environments beyond a simple project type to a rich and complex process.

7 years ago I was invited to create and teach a Branded Environments studio at the Harrington College of Design, the first of its kind in the United States. After internal and state review and approvals it was accepted into the curriculum. I have honed the immersion studio and portfolio for Interior Design every semester since beginning. Teaching has been a natural development of my creative approach and I have been an effective mentor and educator using this process with my employees, consultants, clients, and students.

In the application of my design appraoch, technology in the design profession is for me still only a design tool, and fundamentally not a design solution-maker, as important as but not more important than the traditional pencil or brush. I believe the most successful work should communicate an experience of the design process that points to a solution for the design, and not merely highlight the tools that are used to present that solution. My work continues to be very client-directed, drawing on an empathetic view of solution making developed from a directed experience and understanding clients and users as a critical part of the design process. My approach has developed as a result of extensive and diverse experience of successful creative solution-making in conversation with my clients, in which I avoided applying a singular personal style or design approach in favor of deploying a creative skill set in myriad innovative ways, which led to more strategic and integrated design solutions that go beyond client expectations.