As a child, I spent my summers working alongside my Father at our family-owned Sawmill, in Bellwood, Nebraska. There, he taught me how to work on heavy machinery and fabricate new pieces of machinery, welding and how to run my own business.
While I was seven, my Father commissioned chainsaw carver, Steve Blanchard, to create a sculpture out of a 7-ton Redwood log. While watching Steve transform that log into a lumberjack, I knew that I wanted to be an artist.
Unfortunately, as the years went on, I lost sight of my childhood dreams, and began working different jobs in “Corporate America” however, I kept feeling this pull to go back to my art. So that’s what I did. One small step at a time, I started working on my art again. The more work I created, the stronger my desire to be an artist full-time grew. But I was scared. I kept questioning myself. How would I be able to support myself off of my artwork.
I began examining different avenues and stated creating personalized metal signs and metal wall art but I still wasn’t satisfying that feeling I had. That feeling that I needed to be creating something bigger. Something that I could pour myself into.
By sheer fate, I was invited by a friend to attend a seminar about bronze sculpting. As I sat in the seminar and they detailed all the steps to creating a bronze, I knew that that’s what I was supposed to be doing. I just knew that I could do it. I already had most of the necessary skills needed locked away in my memory from all those years of working in the Mill with my Dad.
So that’s what I did. I finally took that step of faith and left “Corporate America” in the Fall of 2015 and I’ve been a bronze sculptor ever since.
My work ranges in size from miniature to monument, but my focus is realistic monument bronze sculptures.
My husband, Zach Tate, and I currently reside outside Bellwood where I maintain my private studio.