Artist's Statement

Born in South Kingstown, Rhode Island to two farm kids, one a musical child prodigy, I made my first public performance at the age of two, singing on the bar of the malt shop where my mother worked. The entire family sang, and The Bell Family Gospel Singers from Temple, Texas made their first record when I was thirteen.

My next "first" came at the age of seventeen when I auditioned for my first musical comedy and got the part. That's where I met John Glayzer, who became my husband. We moved to Europe the following year. I auditioned at the Nuremberg Opera to perform American Musicals in the German language, and spent the next several years doing just that.

We returned to the United States in 1974 and moved to San Francisco where I saw a newspaper ad for auditions for Beach Blanket Babylon Goes Bananas. I became one of the original cast members of that stage show, which has since made theatrical history. As you may know, Beach Blanket Babylon is still running today.

While working in Beach Blanket Babylon, I also performed in several of the more popular Cabarets in the San Francisco area. I worked with the wonderful and gifed Michael Reno who faithfully accompanied me through think and (often)thin times. In 1978 after deciding that he needed to move to Los Angeles, he wrote a song (which I always thought was for me)called "San Francisco Bye-Bye". With the aid of our backers, we recorded two versions of the song at The World-Famous Automatt in San Francisco. Although it was never released, I have made MP3s of the two songs and the ballad version is available.

Thinking the record would be released shortly,I left BBB in 1979 to go to Los Angeles. But some things are just not meant to be, and I decided to get on with my life. I started a freelance sound recording business serving the Motion Picture Industry, but life...meeting financial obligations...all the other uncertainties associated with a small business began to stress me out.

My friends suggested that working with clay might calm my nerves so I picked up a box of polymer sculpting material and began to create. I'm not saying that it was easy, but eventually I got the hang of it. I let the individual characters flow out of my hands, never consciously making the decision as to who would be born out of the clay.

Learning as I went along, I entered one or two contests, not realizing my work was too small for regular sculpture contests. Finally, I entered my first miniature contest and one of my entries was put on display at the San Bernardino County Museum.

Deciding to learn "how sculpting was really done", I enrolled in a summer school at Los Angeles Community College where I also took drawing and beginning design. There I discovered acrylic painting. Since that time I've assembled more than 20 paintings, and more that 30 small sculptures.

It has since been my dream to have my sculptures cast in bronze, and I now have two limited editions available.