Our Story
For us, home is an old Wisconsin commercial building, built about 1900 in the tiniest of towns, surrounded by lakes. We are in the middle of nowhere, but conveniently tucked between Chicago and Milwaukee, so we needn't ever feel at a loss for company. Our building began as the Dew Drop Inn. It later became a classic Wisconsin Meat Market with the owners living upstairs.
For the past 30 years, it has been a place for innovation and ideas, with ample elbow room for husband and wife artists, our daughter, a dog, a few hens, and a big garden. It has provided me with a quiet sanctuary for my drawing and a print shop for my etching press. In another part of the building, David has a few easels for painting and a complete ceramic studio, and lots of music to match his energy!
Now, one of our greatest pleasures is working together as mixed media artists. We have a combined 75 artist years of skills and studio experience and an accumulation of tools and materials that put us in a position to have a go at just about whatever we'd like to create.
In our studios, we are both inspired daily by the sun setting beyond acres of wetlands at the back of our property in rural S.E. Wisconsin…or by a storm making its way across that same open land. Nature is an important part of our life here.
Mixed media gives us the opportunity to work with natural materials, many of which come from our property. Mixed media also gives us the excuse to seek out other places where unexpected treasures can be found!
For many many years, we've had the adventure of travelling across the country participating in outdoor art festivals, meeting and making wonderful friends along the way, and finding beautiful places where we could linger, if just for a bit.
We'd like to think that all of those experiences, the stories we've heard, the people we met who touched us so deeply, are a part of the artwork that we come home to create. I'm sure you can feel it, too: they're more than just rocks.
"Be humble for you are made of earth;
be noble for you are made of stars"
-Serbian proverb
We're all made of stardust, simultaneously infinitesimal and expansive.
It's something that we are reminded of every day in our studio.
-Joy