One way or another, I’ve been making altars all my life.  I think it goes back to my childhood growing up on the beach in Malibu.  Back then, kids created things from found objects - including trash!  I would spend long summer days building cities in the sand with driftwood, seaweed, and shells.  I used foil from gum and cigarette wrappers to model little sculptures of animals and humans to populate my scenes.

Later, after getting my teaching credential and an MFA in art, I rediscovered my passion for assemblage - using a variety of materials in new ways and transforming the ordinary into the extraordinary.  I was fortunate to be able to spend over 25 years as an art educator and teacher as the owner of my own art school in Santa Monica.  It was there I taught many different media and techniques, including painting, drawing and collage.  But somehow I kept returning to making altars.

I continue to make altars, but now I approach them differently.  Art and the creative process go hand in hand with a deep focus and concentration that gives each of us direct access to our inner life.  Making an altar now serves also as a deeply meaningful and personal process.  It allows us to focus, feel, see and create what is important and central to who we are.  I have also seen how it provides those who make altars an opportunity for reflection, and a place for remembrance.  It is a living meditation on what we want to honor and what we want to attract into our life. I now understand that making altars is really a way of turning art into prayer.

This is where my journey has taken me — and what I now deeply want to share with others.