About Me

My passions are social justice, dance, art, family, animals, and creating community.  I hold a Master's Degree in Art Therapy from the School of The Art Institute of Chicago.  I am a licensed Mental Health Counselor in the State of Washington.  I am fortunate to call the Northwest my home where I can be near the ocean, mountains, and forests. I began my career in human service working in a group home for teen girls who had lived much of their lives in the foster care system.  That work increased my commitment to becoming an Art Therapist.  After three years there I left to attend graduate school at The School of The Art Institute of Chicago.  Living in Chicago offered me a rich experience of the art world as well as opportunities to work in the larger Chicago area as an Art Therapy intern.  While in graduate school I worked in a shelter for women who were homeless, in an inpatient psychiatric unit where I was was able to lead an art therapy group for the inpatient eating disorder unit, and a family counseling center in Evergreen Park.  Once I completed my degree, I moved back to Olympia and worked for a year in a community mental health agency with chronically mentally ill adults.  I have been in private practice as a Licensed Mental Health Therapist and Art Therapist in Olympia, WA for 20 years now.  I love the work and believe that therapy must be as linked to social justice work as it is to personal healing. I consider my work through an intersectional feminist lens always taking into consideration the elements of culture and oppression that are in the therapy room.  

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"No therapist, no person, can claim detachment from social contact. Each human act is a social act and moral statement: a political fact. It then becomes important which values we hold and which of them comes first. This awareness must structure all radical therapy today; for liberation from within has to be accompanied by liberation from with out."
-The Radical Therapist Manifesto (written 1971).