Located in the premier endcap of Mill Valley’s historic and charming El Paseo passageway, The Studio is a working photography and painting space, as well as a gallery and a community space for teaching and gathering.

El Paseo has long been rooted in supporting artists and creative expression and was originally envisioned as an artist colony. In 1938, community activist and visionary Edna Foster and her husband Henry purchased the historic Holtum Building at 11–17 Throckmorton Avenue, along with the property stretching back to Sunnyside Avenue. Edna imagined “El Paseo” (Spanish for “scenic path”) as a place where artists and craftspeople could live, create, and share their work - an idea which still resonates today. Renovations began in 1940 and were completed after the war, transforming the space into an Old World passageway of shops and galleries inspired by the winding paths of a Spanish town. Together, the Fosters created an interconnected series of buildings, courtyards, and gardens using richly sourced materials: adobe bricks from Mexico, massive hand-carved beams from Fort Cronkhite, rail ties from the Scenic Railway, and wrought iron fixtures from the Guatemala Building at the Treasure Island World’s Fair. The gently sloped bricked pathway which runs alongside The Studio is thick with climbing vines and flowers, and remains one of the Fosters’ most beloved design choices. Stepping into The Studio enables visitors to find moments of quiet away from the busy pace of life.

The Studio’s architecture remains charming and unusual. It combines multiple original spaces into a single large unit which has an expansive large wall, banks of leaded divided-lite windows which let in expansive afternoon sun. It has three entries, two directly onto the charming El Paseo walkway, and one entry onto the main street. The Studio functions as a gallery and also as a creative space where I shoot and paint.

I am a working photographer, painter and poet. My works linker in the quiet intersectional tensions between intimacy, identity, power and vulnerability. Within these archetypes, I focus on exploring my own capacities for grief and tenderness, love and loneliness. At my core, I am always seeking the boundaries of connection and disconnection. I look for liminal spaces where identities are revealed and reshaped and where pockets of gentleness can arise. Everything I make is a love letter of sorts and an invitation for closeness: knowing there is pain everywhere, I hope we can choose to be each other’s holy respite. My visual work ranges from viscerally emotional photographic portraiture to abstract and figurative paintings which often include vibrant kaleidoscopic colors and range from small works on paper to vast works on canvas and wood. My poetry is an ongoing thread that I weave throughout my visual works; sometimes it stands alone and sometimes it is presented in context with visual pieces. Everything is about play and delight, while honoring quiet introspection. Please come visit me at The Studio!