Who Am I

As a child, I never seemed to quite go along with the crowd — a trait I con­tinue until this day. I have always com­bined a log­i­cal, sci­en­tific turn of mind with an insa­tiable curios­ity and a wide cre­ative streak. This has led to an intrigu­ing set of twists and turns in my life path through the years.

My grand­mother and me

I started off as a math major in col­lege, but switched to psy­chol­ogy after a year. Even then, I did not take the “stan­dard” path through the major, but instead focused on the bio­log­i­cal and sci­en­tific side of the field, lead­ing to one of those “twists and turns.” After one semes­ter in grad­u­ate school, I real­ized that I just could not do research on ani­mals. So I dropped out of grad school, took a cler­i­cal job, and started tak­ing com­puter pro­gram­ming classes on the side.

A year and a half later I found myself in another city, in another state, back in grad­u­ate school but this time in com­puter sci­ence. I became a part-​time instruc­tor after my first year there, con­tin­u­ing to teach there until shortly before my son was born in 1984. Although I spent six years after grad­u­ate school in indus­try as a soft­ware devel­oper, I never doubted that I would return to teaching.

In 1990, through a for­tu­itous set of coin­ci­dences, I was hired to teach com­puter sci­ence at a local two-​year col­lege. I have remained there since, through numer­ous per­sonal and pro­fes­sional chal­lenges, and still find teach­ing as frus­trat­ing yet reward­ing as ever.

Like many chil­dren, I grew up believ­ing that you were either “artis­tic” or you weren’t, and scientifically-​minded peo­ple weren’t sup­posed to be artis­tic. That idea was rein­forced by teach­ers who chas­tised me for col­or­ing out­side the lines, cut­ting out crooked shapes, and draw­ing pic­tures that in no way resem­bled the objects they rep­re­sented. For­tu­nately, my grand­mother was more open-​minded than that, and taught me some basic embroi­dery stitches when I was around seven. She also encour­aged me to dab­ble and exper­i­ment with what­ever caught my fancy when I spent sum­mers with her, being what was often termed a “craft-​y type” of per­son herself.

The embroi­dery car­ried me through school, through col­lege, through grad­u­ate school — from stamped cross-​stitch to needle­point and crewel embroi­dery to counted cross-​stitch. At one point I tried pot­tery, but found quickly that it wasn’t my medium. Finally, in 1987, I had the oppor­tu­nity to take a two-​day weav­ing class, and took to it instantly. Weav­ing led to spin­ning, to dye­ing, to a lit­tle bas­ketry, a lit­tle bead­work, a lit­tle book­bind­ing. I immersed myself in tex­tiles, exper­i­ment­ing with fibers and teach­ing oth­ers when oppor­tu­ni­ties arose. I vol­un­teered with local and national weav­ing guilds and became a “work­shop junkie.”

Even­tu­ally, I even went back to school part-​time, earn­ing an associate’s degree in stu­dio art from the col­lege where I teach. I actu­ally con­quered my fear of draw­ing and design and real­ized that it hadn’t been me all those years ago, it had been my teach­ers’ lack of insight and imag­i­na­tion. I even began grad­u­ate school yet again, intend­ing to get a MFA in textiles.

Yet, by 2003, my entire life was askew. I was divorced, liv­ing alone, cop­ing with empty nest syn­drome as my son left for col­lege, bat­tling severe depres­sion and anx­i­ety dis­or­der, and unable to muster any enthu­si­asm for tex­tiles. Lit­tle did I know what changes were on the horizon!

With my par­ents’ cat Spook, Spring 2003

I met the man who is now my hus­band in August, 2003; I began exper­i­ment­ing with col­lage and altered art; I left the MFA pro­gram until I could find some cre­ative direc­tion. Then, in May, 2005, a week­end get-​away with my fel­low women com­puter sci­ence pro­fes­sors directed me down a new path. The four of us took a morning-​long work­shop at a glass stu­dio, try­ing our hand with lam­p­work­ing and with fus­ing. The fus­ing was inter­est­ing, but oh, the lam­p­work­ing! Play­ing with FIRE!!! Over the sum­mer I took two pri­vate classes with local lam­p­worker Cristie Prince, did a lot of research, and set up my own home lam­p­work­ing studio.

At my torch, April, 2007

Cur­rently I live in Mari­etta, Geor­gia, only a few miles from my child­hood homes, with my hus­band Gary and our three cats. When I’m not teach­ing com­puter sci­ence or melt­ing glass, I am often found vol­un­teer­ing for Good Mews Ani­mal Foun­da­tion (a no-​cage, no-​kill cats-​only shel­ter) as an adop­tion coun­selor and med­ica­tions volunteer.

I can’t stay away from tech­nol­ogy in my free time, either. I am active on social net­works, par­tic­u­larly Twit­ter and Face­book. I ran The Glass Haven lam­p­work­ing forum, from 2007 until 2009, still man­age the wiki there, run a com­puter sci­ence stu­dent forum at GPC, and am work­ing with long-​time friend Char Ander­son on a chain­maille wiki. In a way, tech­nol­ogy con­nects all the threads of my life together into a sin­gle mul­ti­col­ored braid.

Last, but cer­tainly not least, I finally found a form of exer­cise that I not only can stand, but actu­ally love. Thanks to Andrea, I’m tak­ing bel­ly­dance lessons two to three times a week at Nazeem Allayl Stu­dio! Yes, you CAN learn some­thing new, even bel­ly­dance, in your fifties. I’m not par­tic­u­larly good at it, not after six months, but it’s bitchin’ exer­cise, a whole lot of fun, and I’ve made new friends from it. What more could I want from a work­out? Look for me to even start per­form­ing in the stu­dio shows soon!

Yes, Life is Good!