About

Art is about sharing the way we experience the world. Art brings us together and allows us to communicate on a different level. When people think about communication, they generally think about speech, but other means exist. Art is a visual means of communication, and my artwork is language made visible, art that speaks to everyone in a positive form. 

I learned Gregg Shorthand as a secretary, and immediately fell in love with this beautiful, phonetic writing system. Gregg Shorthand is the most popular form of pen stenography in the United States, and it has been adapted to other languages, including French, German, Italian, Spanish, Catalan, Irish, Russian, Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, Esperanto, Thai, and many others. Because Gregg Shorthand is based on phonetics, it records the sounds of the speaker, not the spellings. Therefore, in any spoken language, Gregg Shorthand is ultimately a global writing system. With the advent of technology, however, the usage of shorthand has declined and its instruction is nearly extinct. I continued to utilize Gregg Shorthand as a legal secretary. When I matriculated to law school, I took lecture notes in shorthand. Afterwards and for the next 20 years, I took my own notes in shorthand. In 2016, I relocated to South Florida and retired from the practice of law. 

My passion is the Art of Gregg Shorthand, and I am dedicated to preserving this beautiful, universal writing system through art. In addition to being the only artist who utilizes learned shorthand as an art form, my work touches on important issues of the human condition. The central concept is not contained by the surface or borders of the wall or the canvas; rather, that is the portal to draw you into a story, an idea, a moment of history, or an expression of mind and emotion that cannot be contained just within words or pictures. My medium is the canvas, the metal, the wood, the paper, and the paint. My writing is in Gregg Shorthand, Cursive, and Braille. I use shorthand words and phrases as an abstract gestural form, in which the form's meaning provides a narrative abstraction on the canvas. My messages are the conversations contained in the artwork, and to date, I have created artwork in English, French, and Spanish shorthand. For a visual artist who uses words and phrases in the form of shorthand, I also incorporate the actual utilitarian object, the steno pad, in my works. I incorporate Braille as part of the message and as a meaningful texture to the piece. 

Art and its many forms are not made for only one segment of society; rather, each artist creates an art form with their identity and culture. Our society needs to encourage and nurture all forms of art, lest they should die. 

My goals are to preserve the beautiful art of Gregg Shorthand and to bring people together by creating and sharing art that is universal and accessible to everyone.