About

"What's going on here?" you may ask.

Well, I can't really give a straight answer on account of the variety.  I often feel like a deer in the headlights when someone asks me what I do for a living, which of course led to my infamous response of "I do stuff.  By that window." 

So, below I give a brief outline of the background of each of the things I do.

 

Godteri

When I moved from Oklahoma to Trøndelag, I discovered a lot of new and wonderful candies.  However, some of my favorites were seriously lacking or straight up absent.  So, I taught myself how to go about making them.  Turns out it's a lot of fun and plenty of others liked them, too, so I decided to make a business of it. 

 

Art

I've been doodling and drawing and painting and sculpting and whatnot since forever.  Well, for me, at least.  My parents made an album preserving my very first official drawings, when I was only 2.  I still have these, and can proudly say that the one labeled "airplane" really does look like an airplane.  Growing up, I spent a good chunk of my time drawing, never going so far as a doctor's office without a bit of paper and a pencil (or, later, 500 markers in tow to the family reunion).  Some are surprised I didn't go on to study art, but I was led to believe that living wages for an artist could only realistically be achieved after the death of the artist, so I took a much more practical route in my studies and went and got a degree in music, specifically tuba performance.  Yep, that oughta do it.

 

Music

I maintained a position as Principal Tuba for my local symphony for 15 years (starting when I was still in high school).  The only reason I stopped was I moved halfway across the world.  Since the move, I've done a few little things, but largely have been working on some crazy stuff at home.  Just give me a holler if you ever need a tuba for something, though!  And one of these days I'll get myself a sackbut.  I studied tenor sackbut under Irv Wagner for a number of years because of my interest in early music. 

Dance

I'm an expert on interpretive and expressive dance.  If you ask, I will probably demonstrate, free of charge.  However I must note that as I age, the Double Windmill gets a little tougher for me to perform on short notice.

T-Shirts, Stickers, and Other Things with Art stuck on them

My samboer had told me for years I should stick my stuff on T-shirts.  Well it took me almost 10 years to get around to that, but better late than never, I guess.  Of course it took me finding a wonderful company to help me with the entirety of the printing stuff, so I was super lucky to come across the wonderful folks at Megatrykk AS! 

Science

I am a lifelong Observer of Things, and if I wasn't drawing you could probably find little me out flipping rocks and logs, looking for worms, bugs, spiders, and if I was really lucky, snakes.  For a long time my dream was to become a cetologist and work with whales in the wild (I know, odd dream for a kid living in land-locked Oklahoma).  As mentioned above I went in a different direction and studied music instead.  BUT, I never stopped observing things, and I loved to read about science and often had a field guide of some sort with me.  Sometime while in college I discovered a supplier of entomology equipment, and I began to collect. 

I'm forever indebted to my 20th-century music history professor for getting me to the biology department.  He had my first class of the day, so I showed up wearing a kill jar on my hip, carrying my "Coleoptera" coffee mug and a field guide or two.  He insisted I needed to talk with someone in the biology department.  I was convinced I would be unwanted there as I was just a music major.  He insisted I try anyway.

So, eventually I did make contact with someone there, which led to me working in a lab full time and studying oribatid mites, even getting certified in soil acarology at the mite course in Ohio.  Eventually I began to date my samboer, and together with him got familiar with the Odonata.  I still work with both groups, have continued doing science outreach programs and have even learned a lot about working with things so tiny, they make my mites look huge!  I've also managed to get 3 publications in major ecological journals (two in Ecology, one in Oikos). 

But of course my art finds its way into the science, and I have done everything from cartoons to technical illustrating and even sculpting and animation to help communicate science-y stuff.

 

 

In short, um, the short version can only really be "I do things."