I was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I am an interdisciplinary artist with a background in public art, fine art, animation and photography. For the past ten years I have been working to turn the tones found in coffee beans and tea leaves into an actual painting medium.
Painting with coffee and tea is a very complicated process. I began using simple washes, treating the stains as a water medium on watercolor paper. As the art progressed, I wanted to challenge myself and continue to experiment with various types of teas in order to achieve a wide range of color and tone. This all led to a completely new chemical process of creating paint from these stains through years of research and trial and error experiments.
Getting the colors to keep their natural pigment without fading due to oxidation and ultraviolet light exposure has been difficult to achieve. Each tea and coffee used has a unique chemical composition and has to be treated differently. I must think about how each color and binder will react when mixed together. This process has resulted in a new and exciting medium.
The process is always evolving.
Enjoy!
