Reflective Art

Art is a way of exploring and knowing things for which I have no words or explanation. In my own art journey and soul work, I have developed a practice of reflective art and began sharing it with my community about a year and a half ago. This process facilitates deep, personal reflection in a space that allows for vulnerability and safety created by individual reflection and art manipulation. It always excites me to see participants who are “not creative,” rediscover their innate creativeness and embrace the messy, beautiful work of creation and healing. I will be leading the messy, hands full of color and texture portions of the retreat, hoping each of us learns things we cannot say in words along the way.

“Art is a means to enter, to play with, to dance with, to wrestle with anything that intrigues, delights, disturbs, or terrifies us.”  ~ Pat Allen

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Interpreting, Coaching, & Consulting

Army Brat
I am an Army Brat (a term of endearment, not offense). I lived in 17 homes by the time I graduated highschool. I lived 6 of my 17 childhood years in Germany (southern & northern). My first school was a German school and it was an immersive experience. 

My parents are also both Army brats spending time living in Japan and France in their childhoods.

 Finding my way to Interpreting 
I often say that I was born into a semi-multi-lingual household 🙂 We had many words/concepts worked into our home cutlure from my parents diverse backgrounds as well as our lived experience as a nuclear family. I didn’t realize until marrying my husband (also military adjacent childhood/adulthood) that my family was weird…. he would note words that weren’t English (I didn’t know that), particularly. 

Given my childhood fluency in German, when we moved back to the states and I needed a foreign language, I took German. It was not ideal in the USA, to learn from someone who had not been to the country but had book knowledge of the language. So, when we moved again, this time to just outside of Washington, DC. I was looking for a different foreign language. The high school I attended happened to have ASL as a foreign language (not common in the early ’90s). My teacher was Deaf (not common even now) and we took field trips to Gallaudet on the regular. 

My high school also happened to be the magnet school in the district for deaf/hard of hearing students. We had interpreters and cued speech transliterators around our school in classes and at assemblies. Once I saw it, I knew that is what I wanted to do!

Interpreting Career & Specializations
Entering into the interpreting profession, I specialized in higher education interpreting, primarily masters and phd level coursework. At this time, I was in the Kansas City area. I did a bit of freelance as well. 

My husband and I decided to move our family to Oregon to be closer to grandparents in 2004, my contact in Oregon happened to work for the Oregon Judicial Department as a full time staff interpreter for the courts. They happened to have a position opening to which I applied and was offered it. I then specialized in courtroom interpreting, becoming SC:L certified in 2006. I still love courtroom interpreting, but really interpreting of any kind. It’s the BEST!!

Making my way to teaching
Growing up, I always thought I would be a teacher (or a lawyer), I do have some natural bossy and teacher-y tendencies 🙂 In my interpreter education program, my professor saw something in me and started sharing trainings and opportunities that I should keep on my radar as I matured in the field. 

Opportunities came my way to teach a single course, then a series of courses, and then a full-time position was offered to me at Western Oregon University (WOU) after I completed my Masters in Interpreter Pedagogy from Northeastern University. I taught full-time from 2007-2025. 

I love to teach ethics, technical skills, and supervise research projects. My favorite is seeing “aha” connections being made.

Int 2025, I exited my full-time position to pursue different adventures, still in teaching and interpreting, but in a new arena – professional development. Specifically focused on equipping and resourcing those who teach, mentor, and coach other interpreters.