I come from a family of creative, hard-working, self-taught, artisans.

My grandmother, my dad’s mother, was a professional seamstress in the Interior Design Department of the famed Marshall Field & Co. in Chicago where she worked her entire life. She sewed custom draperies and slipcovers for a living but also for her family. Grandma also designed and handcrafted quilts for everyone in our extended family.

My grandfather, my mom’s father, was a Supervisor in a local wire factory. Grandpa drew with pencil and sometimes ink on paper napkins at the kitchen table pretty much every day. Every once in awhile, he was known to create more formal pencil & ink portraits of family members. Family lore has it that grandpa was offered a job at Disney, but he had to find his way out to California and he just never had the funds to do that.

My dad was a self-taught engineer and metallurgist by trade. He left the trades in his middle age to became a high school industrial arts teacher. Dad took up ceramics when I was a child and took me to my very first art fair when I was about 8. Later he turned his attention to woodworking, creating everything from picture frames to tables to a hand-carved child’s gliding horse.

My mother, like her mother-in-law, also quilted …and sewed…and crocheted… and knit…and upholstered…and refinished furniture. She was the family color expert and never idle.

My brother was the one of us who got the “drawing gene.” Growing up, he drew dinosaurs, monsters, Snoopy, Charlie Brown and beautiful and detailed mazes.

Though I have never taken a single art class—not in elementary school, not in high school, not in college, I always understood the importance and power of art because it’s always been around me.

My whole life has, just naturally, been filled with art. The colors, designs and art of all my family members.

And now it’s my turn.

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From our Roots,

For our Homes

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I came to this idea of bringing culture to design in 1992…


when I became a mom and began raising my beautiful multi-ethnic little girl. I realized then that the world of design, just like the rest of my adult world, was filled with artists, designers and makers who were different than me. All talented people whose artistic lives grew out of their own mostly European cultures and influences. It occurred to me that there was no voice in this design landscape speaking to me or my new daughter.

So I began to create.

Using self-drying clay, I hand rolled beads and painted them with colors and designs that popped into my head, designs forged by a lifetime of exposure to the traditions, customs and culture of my Mexican family. I also began exploring African and Native American design concepts, embracing these other traditions that are also a part of my cultural heritage.

I then began to bring cultural design into my own home. I discovered acrylics and started painting furniture, mirrors, light switch plates and other odds n’ ends I found in resale shops. My design work celebrated the artistic traditions from the cultures that nurtured me, raised me, taught me, and inspired me.

I believe culture and design have a profound influence over us. Exposure to different ideas and different emotions through different art can open our minds and change the way we feel and think.

I want to bring different art into your home. I hope to broaden your concept of design a little, open your mind to different cultural traditions, giving you more & different design choices and a fresh new outlook on art and hopefully also, on the world.

Global Design for the Home

Celebrating the Power of Art to Open Hearts and Change Minds