As a child, I always wanted to decorate the walls in my home. My first wall drawing masterpiece, executed at the age of five, was a three-foot high purple bunny in wax crayon on my mother's freshly painted yellow wall. Her chastisement almost discouraged my artistic leanings, but I was one of those kids who was determined to explore my gift of artistic talent, and began painting animals in oils. The strong creative instinct persisted, and here I am, many years later, still decorating the walls and any other surface that will accept paint.

My first awareness of folk art came at 13 when I admired my girlfriend's bedroom furniture traditionally painted by her Pennsylvania Dutch mother. I did not encounter folk art again until 1981 when a local artist offered classes in oil and acrylic mediums in a public school library. Supplies, brushes and wood were almost non-existent at those early classes, and sitting for two or more hours on those tiny children's chairs guaranteed that you could paint anywhere for long periods of time.

After taking more seminars, I began painting full time in acrylics and selling folk art wood pieces both privately and at recognised shows. Over the next five years, my husband Marty and I created and produced our own wood pieces. Because of high quality and customer satisfaction, his wood pieces are in demand throughout Canada and the United States, and are finding a growing market as far away as Japan.

In the early 1980's, we realized our dream of having a log cabin studio by purchasing an old farmstead with the original, but derelict, 1835 settler's cabin. A lot of blood, sweat and tears went into disassembling and reconstructing the old cabin in a new location on the property. In 1986, I began teaching folk art classes, and in 1988, we opened a studio in the basement of our home where I taught beginning, intermediate and advanced classes, and Marty used the cabin as a woodworking shop.

The cabin progressed from work shop to classroom, and now functions as a retail store with an entire range of painting supplies as well as painted and unfinished wood pieces in pine and oak. Our modern studio and Marty's woodworking shop now adjoin it.

In 1997, a long way from purple bunnies on yellow walls, I found myself halfway around the world teaching my own decorative art patterns to students in Japan, some of whom had been among the first students in my basement classes.

I now have an extensive line of pattern packets which are distributed across Canada and the United States, as well as publications appearing on the market. Unfinished wood pieces for each packet are available through my website and our catalogue.

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