Like many women, I spent years supporting my family. I was an art teacher, reading teacher, and School Counselor. While I was an educator I did a number of odd jobs to maintain my children’s lifestyle. I painted banners for balloon races, waitressed in a dinner theater, and worked in a vineyard. I hold a Master of Education in School Counseling, a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing, and a BS in Art Education with an English Minor. I also did a Post-Grad semester at Vermont College of Fine Arts with the poet David Wojahn.

I have Hyperkalemic Periodic Paralysis, a rare neuromuscular condition that is somewhat controlled by medication. It has slowed me down at times but hasn’t stopped me. A friend once asked me, “Have you always been an overachiever?”

My artist books are in the National Museum of Women in the Arts, and Special Collections at Bryn Mawr College, Swarthmore College, University of Iowa, Herron Art Library, Wesleyan University, Skillman Library, Lafayette College, and Stanford University. I designed and bound a book with the poet Nikky Finney now in the collection of President and Mrs. Obama. 

I have held residencies at Vermont Studio Center, Virginia Center for Creative Arts, Universidad Metropolitana Autonomia, Mexico City, University of Costa Rica, and the Ragdale Foundation. I was the resident book artist at the Experimental Printmaking Institute at Lafayette College, working for the print professor Curlee Raven Holton from 2001-2016. I was the featured artist in Vol. 15 Issue 1 of Mezzo Camin a journal of poetry in form. My documentary essay on the printmaking of artist Willie Cole was published in The International Review of African American Art. I was the Poetry Coordinator for the NJ Book Arts Symposium. 

Also, a poet I have been thrice nominated for a Pushcart Prize and have published poems in numerous journals. I’ve published two full-length books of poetry: Locus Mentis (PS Books) and Cures for Hysteria (Finishing Line Press.)  My third manuscript Falling into the Diaspora will be published in 2022 by Finishing Line Press.

“The Philosophy of feng shui is a practice of arranging the pieces in living spaces in order to create balance with the natural world. The goal is to harness energy forces and establish harmony between an individual and their environment.” 

(Anjie Cho, The Spruce)

I find that my work has evolved into a form of collage fed by my background in printmaking and book arts. I use discarded or newly created pieces of serigraphs to put together what I call a Tao of Many Puzzles. These pieces are arranged and re-arranged before they are finally glued into the correct solution. I use bookbinder’s glue and printmaking papers along with Japanese and Indonesian papers. The final compositions have no reference to representational objects, but contain line, shape and connections that are guided by a kind of mental feng shui. The idea is derived from an ancient poem about humans being connected and flowing with our environment. When I feel the harmony within the piece is accomplished, it is finished.

The winds are mild

The sun is bright

The water is clear

The trees are lush 

I hope you will experience this sense of harmony. 

Much of my work is based within the human body, zooming in on microscopic processes of the neurological and muscular systems.  Lately, however,  

the work has become its own inspiration. It has become less a partnership with randomness and more an intentional harnessing of design elements. I compose as I go along keeping my developing design as a guide to what will come next. I have faith that each choice will lead to the correct arrangement.

I’ve noticed that several of my friends have started doing jigsaw puzzles. One even has a table dedicated to whatever puzzle she has ongoing. I began wondering why I didn’t have an interest in putting together jigsaw puzzles, when I realized I WAS doing them. Mine don’t come in a box with one solution; they are created anew every time I encounter my materials and there are myriad solutions to be generated. I’ve certainly not been in control of my genetic identity even though in the past my work has always been about the rudiments of human existence, our biological identities. This work is as identity free as I can make it.