I was born in New York City, grew up in the burbs, escaped when I was 18 years old and went to Penn State University. After a year of studying art and avoiding football games, I returned to the city and finished my education at Parsons School of Design and New York University. During those four years in school in Greenwich village, I started traveling the world during summer vacations with my camera and sketch book. Months after graduating, I moved to Italy and began my European education. Within a year, I was fluent in Italian, married to a Greek architecture student and coming to the conclusion that Italian society was open to tourists but not immigrants. Back to New York city,with its rock music,bohemian life style, and marijuana we alienated our parent’s generation. We bought a four-story 100 year old brownstone in Brooklyn in an ethic neighborhood with Puerto Ricans and Italians. I taught art and mathematics to rough kids in the barrio and my husband worked on interior design for the newly built Twin Towers. My daughter went to Montessori and we survived a year of lathe and plaster demolition, tearing off ancient wallpaper and sanding 100 year old wood floors. In the seventies we sold the brownstone, quit our jobs, divorced and moved back to Greece as friends. My in-laws became the parents of my daughter as I started a clothing boutique in Corfu, lived on a nude beach and spent a year traveling overland through East Africa and the Middle East.
Always with a camera and a sketchbook, I kept a diary of my adventures. Two and a half years later, I returned to the U.S. and decided to relocate to Seattle Washington. This was the beginning of my career as a restauranteur.
With a close friend I had met in Greece, we opened one of the first espresso bars in Seattle in 1976. Using my entrepreneurial skills, I created several unique restaurants, clubs, bars and clothing stores over a period of 25 years. Always involved with the cuisine at my restaurants, I honed my skills as a chef in my last restaurant venture which closed in 2003.
During this time I became a serious fine art photographer, traveling to Cuba during the nineties and building up a huge portfolio of images which I exhibited in several galleries in Seattle. I have done some commercial work for Starbucks, and local magazines. Many of my images can be found on gallerystock.com.
My humanitarian work began during my first trip to Bangladesh in 2007. The following year I volunteered with an NGO in Ghana as a photographer. In 2009 I began working on my own projects in northwest Cameroon. see sharedworldvisions.org
With a close friend I had met in Greece, we opened one of the first espresso bars in Seattle in 1976. Using my entrepreneurial skills, I created several unique restaurants, clubs, bars and clothing stores over a period of 25 years. Always involved with the cuisine at my restaurants, I honed my skills as a chef in my last restaurant venture which closed in 2003.
During this time I became a serious fine art photographer, traveling to Cuba during the nineties and building up a huge portfolio of images which I exhibited in several galleries in Seattle. I have done some commercial work for Starbucks, and local magazines. Many of my images can be found on gallerystock.com.
My humanitarian work began during my first trip to Bangladesh in 2007. The following year I volunteered with an NGO in Ghana as a photographer. In 2009 I began working on my own projects in northwest Cameroon. see sharedworldvisions.org