It seems to always begins with someone close to you. For me it was my grandmother on my mother’s side. During the depression the side walk in front of my grandmother’s house was marked by the many homeless people of the day. They knew by the mark that this was a house where a meal and a kind word could be had. My grandmother never turned anyone away. My grandmother was the single greatest influence and role model in developing my own value system and sense of compassion.

When I graduated from high school I joined V.I.S.T.A. (Volunteers In Service To America) specifically to work on an Indian Reservation. After training I was assigned to the Lakota Sioux Reservation,Pine Ridge, South Dakota. There I met Grandma Corney who made richly detailed dolls and reminded me of my own grandmother. She warmly adopted me and taught me many things about her culture. One day she gave me my Indian name "Little Turkey Woman".

When I left the reservation, I was told that the tribe was indebted to me for starting the Arts and Crafts Co-Op but I felt it was I who owed a great debt to the tribe. I learned much about the traditions of the Lakota Sioux and in general the value systems of Native American culture. In those formative years, they had helped me to grow in an important way and had accepted me as one of their own.
I left the reservation to return to college. After a time the fond memories became distant. I started to become interested in photography. I went back to school to finish my BFA and go on for my MFA. I started to concentrate on using ladders as my sole source of imagery. It is this focus on ladders that brought me to the Pueblos and back to Nat ive American culture in the winter of 1989. I was drawn by the use of ladders in traditional Pueblo architecture.

This original work which was shown in installation form at the Fitchburg Art Museum in 1990, successfully conveyed my impression of the cultural strengths of the Pueblos but I wanted a direct voice from the people themselves. It would seem that I could not ‘just take my pictures and run.’ For the past two summers with the help of a number of grants I returned to the Pueblos to interview and photograph contemporary Pueblo dwellers. I entered into a collaboration with a native American educator, Vickie Downey, from the Tesuque Pueblo. Ms. Downey helped to edit the interviews and review all textual information. My collaboration with Ms. Downey was integral to the expansion of the installation. Impressions of an Enduring Culture was shown in June (l993) in Bratislava, Slovakia. I am particularly gratified that our personal interpretation of the cultural strengths of the first Americans was seen in a country valiantly reevaluating its own society.