I spent much of my childhood watching my father paint and draw. Art class was the only place I felt at home in High School. I was lucky enough to go to the Kansas City Art Institute, where I studied under the great and eccentric Ken Ferguson, and to meet my husband Rick Hensley. When we finished our masters degrees at the Rhode Island School of Design, we moved to a rural mountain area in southwest Virginia, where we have lived since 1974 except for a fewyears here and there for teaching and residency opportunities.

I make figurative sculpture as well as functional pottery.

We live on an old dairy farm and have basically made our living making pottery for the two NEA Fellowship Grants and a Virginia Museum Grant. I have had the great fortune to work and teach in many wonderful places such as Penland, Arrowmont, Alfred University, Izmir University in Turkey, and Jingdezhen Ceramic Institute in China. I make figurative sculpture as well as functional pottery.