What drew you to your work as a landscape designer and artist?
I have always been an artist, and as a little kid I loved making and gifting artwork (weavings and constructions from natural materials) to the trees and animals that lived in the areas where I grew up. I still do this today! Becoming a landscape designer was a clear path for me to integrate my love for creating things in the outdoors and connecting people with their surroundings.
What do you find rewarding, exciting, challenging about your work?
I feel so lucky to have a chance to listen to the stories of my clients and to have the opportunity to get to know them and the lands they inhabit. Each family and landscape has their own narrative, and finding the threads that connect them is a dynamic process that takes its own time. I find the greatest gift from this practice is when the installations take on lives of their own and become integrated into the fabric of the place and people—beyond anything I could have imagined.
You talk about the restorative powers of landscape and nature. How did you develop your point of view about nature?
I know this intuitively from growing up. The places I felt safest and most seen were in nature on the banks of the Potomac River and the forests near Washington, DC, where my family and I lived. Places that I would go to often when I was at Bowdoin were The Pines on the way out to Cook’s Corner and the shore at Mere Point. I always feel better when I can slow down, listen, and feel connected to a place. I see this in other people too with the art installations I create, and especially with the elementary school classes in ecology and art that I teach.
How did your career unfold?
My career is still unfolding! I got most excited about land-based art and design through a series of site-specific ecological art installations I created when I was a postbaccalaureate student at the Maryland Institute, College of Art in Baltimore, MD. Working outside and collaboratively with community members was a true inspiration and is a critical core of what I love doing more than twenty-five years later. I eventually went to the Conway School of Landscape Design for a one-year master’s in ecological landscape design and University of Massachusetts–Amherst for my master of landscape architecture degree. I think of my career as a process piece, where every installation I create, every STEM arts class I teach, and every forest bathing walk I lead brings me closer to what my ultimate questions are…How can I give back to this planet, and how can I help connect people to the places they call home? Most importantly, my career unfolded by remaining open to what opportunities came to me and not being afraid to hold true to my values.
Are there ways that your academic or extracurricular work at Bowdoin has come into play in your life or career?
My time with Mark Wethli and Anne Lofquist in the studio arts department was critical inspiration for my choosing to become an artist. I truly loved my time with them and fondly think about their thoughtful and challenging feedback that helped me grow as a person and artist. The beauty and magic of coastal Maine as the place where I was able to explore ideas of connection, ecology, and gardens in literature during my college years with friends and professors provided me with a great foundation to initiate projects wherever I go.
What brought you to Bowdoin?
When I visited Bowdoin, I loved the feeling I got from the people there and from the campus. I could sense that it was a place where I would be challenged intellectually and inspired to find my own way.
What inspires you?
The surprises that each day brings and the constant gift of my family and community of people and landscapes that nourish me.
Is there something about your work or life that others would find surprising?
The way I set up my new practice, Counsel of Trees, to integrate landscape design, art installations, and nature immersions might seem unconventional for a design studio. While these disciplines appear to be tenuously related, they give me a number of avenues to help connect folks to their surroundings for an afternoon, a season, or a lifetime. As I think about it further, I feel like I design with time as much as materials like stone or plants. Few teach that in design school.
Is there something about YOU that others might find surprising?
I am learning to play claw hammer banjo and sing at the same time. It’s not always so melodious! That’s why I often play outside in the meadow or down by the stream. The deer and the frogs don’t seem to mind.
What do you enjoy doing in your spare time?
I love being in our gardens at all times of the year with my family and watching this place grow and evolve. I make herbal teas from the plants that we grow in the landscape, and my go-to tea is homegrown tulsi, rose petals, and nettles.
Best Bowdoin memory, or most-lasting lesson from your Bowdoin days?
My best Bowdoin memories are of the late-night adventures my friends and I made to Popham Beach. That sense of belonging and community under those beautiful skies is powerful even thirty-plus years later.
This story first appeared in the Spring 2025 issue of Bowdoin Magazine. Manage your subscription and see other stories from the magazine on the Bowdoin Magazine website.
