I began doing art late in life—or so it felt at the time. I was in my mid-twenties and after hearing the 10,000-hours-to-master-a-skill theory, I felt compelled to frantically catch up.

Before all that, when everything crashed in 2008, I lost my job at an architecture firm. It was for the best. I felt guilty that I didn’t want to work in an office or use my degree, so I was grateful when the decision to leave was made for me.

I’d fantasized about being a creator and working for myself for a long time. After leaving the world of offices, I immediately signed up for a screen printing class and took ongoing drawing and painting classes at the Art Students’ League of Denver. My main goal was freedom, so I got out of credit card debt and designed my lifestyle to be simple and frugal.

After years of having affordable-but-windowless studios in less than ideal locations—next to the men’s bathroom, by a train crossing, sharing a thin wall with a lawnmower repair shop—I now have my own studio, in my own home!

I draw in pencil and use visual references from books and the internet. My aim is to create narrative illustrations that depict magical moments.

I find inspiration in book illustrations, vintage packaging, matchboxes, magic show posters, and early-20th century illustrations.

I often use text to tell part of the story, but like to leave most of the narrative up to the viewer.

My guiding rule—which I sometimes break—is Possible, but Not Likely. For example, it’s possible for a vole to sit on a cigarette box and float down a river, but it is not likely. On the other hand, dinosaurs didn’t have laptops and headphones, so I would not draw that.

My artist husband Ravi Zupa and I both grew up in Denver suburbs and lived in Denver proper for a long time. Recently, $$$ pushed us to the unchartered territory of Commerce City where we bought a house. The previous owner left us five ducks and a goose, who have exceeded our expectations of awesomeness.

We can make everything “in-house”—from cutting and sanding the boards that we mount the art on to printing the packaging we use to ship it.

Here are all the different types of things we do from our art house:
Draw (in the drawing room, of course)
Paint (in what would conventionally be called the living room)
Sculpt (clay, metal, wood, found objects)
Cut and sand wood for mounting
Screen print (burn screens, print transparencies, mix ink, etc)
Block print (with an antique printing press)
Photograph the art
Shoot and edit videos