Prior to retiring, I wrote grants and marketing materials for non-profit organizations in the Baltimore-Washington area. I also had always written poetry, at times quite successfully. My publication credits include four books of poetry (“After the Barn Door Opened,” “Nosegay” and “Pinned to the Corkboard” by Pudding House Publications and “Stolen Joy” through Icarus Press), articles in the Business Monthly, Journal of Poetry Therapy, Writers’ Journal and Voices of Women, and over 100 poems in literary journals.

In 2016, I encountered a very severe writer’s block. (Yes, such things do exist!) In an effort to find a way to express myself, I began taking art lessons with Robert Howard in Great Cacapon, WV before moving to Rehoboth Beach in 2017. There I studied soft pastels with Nick Serratore in Milton and Jill Glassman in Berlin, MD. In 2021, I began taking lessons in white-line woodcuts from Fred Dylla of Lewes, DE. This uniquely American artform began in Provincetown, MA by a group of women artists in 1915. As a member of the Delaware White-line Woodcut Guild, I’ve had some of my prints in the Guild’s exhibits at the Lewes Public Library and CAMP Rehoboth in Rehoboth Beach.

In October 2025, my husband Steve Van Order and I moved to Berkeley County, WV. I’m honored to have been accepted as a member of the Berkeley Arts Council’s co-op artists and now exhibit pastels and white-line woodcuts at the Berkeley Art Works at 116 N. Queen Street, Martinsburg, WV.

Just prior to moving, I had a painting in a national juried exhibit “Shades of Pastel 2025” sponsored by the Maryland Pastel Society. Also in 2025, I was one of five women artists with work in “H-E-R: Art in Five Voices” at the Bernice Kish Gallery in Columbia, MD. I’ve exhibited in juried Fine Art Exhibitions at the Rehoboth Art League (RAL) and members’ exhibits there and at the Academy Art Museum in Easton, MD and the Art League of Ocean City. David Brinley, judge for the 2022 RAL exhibit, awarded my painting “Approaching Storm” the Faucett Okie Award for an emerging Delaware artist working in oil or pastel. I had a solo exhibition of a collection of my paintings, “Scene on the Trail,” in the RAL Members’ Gallery on the second floor of the Rehoboth Beach City Hall for the month of October 2023.

My paintings and woodcuts are primarily of landscapes I photograph while hiking in National, regional, and state parks. In particular, I like painting landscapes that can be seen only on foot.