A life between academe and artists

I am currently on leave from the Art History Department until July 2024.
During this time, I will be primarily engaged in work with art academies in Ukraine and Estonia through the UAx Platform, under the auspices of the European League of Institutes of the Arts.

Originally, I came to Concordia in 2010 as part-time faculty in Studio Arts and then returned in 2015 as Dean of the Faculty of Fine Arts until completing my mandate in 2020. In the years prior, I was Graduate Dean at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and Director of the MFA program at the Maine College of Art, one of the earliest low residency, interdisciplinary MFAs in America. As a dual citizen, I have moved between America and Canada for academic positions over the years, but my heart and my ancestry is decidedly located in the North.

I have enjoyed a serpentining career that toggled between academe and the cultural sphere, with “off book” forays into archaeology, sheep herding, and chefing. Long gaps, late life degrees, and living abroad have characterized my path. My current "home" is Estonia from where I work on humanitarian projects that intersect with higher arts education.

I hold a PhD in Art History and Visual Culture from the University of Manchester UK and an MA in Museum Studies from the University of Toronto. My undergraduate degrees are in Classical Studies and Near Eastern Archaeology (also U of T), and Art Education (York University). I am also recently certified as a death doula through the University of Vermont USA. I am still learning!

Throughout my (often interrupted) years of study, I was fortunate to have wonderful support from the Banff Centre for the Arts, Concordia’s Gail and Stephen A. Jarislowsky Institute for Studies in Canadian Art, the Cultural Theory Institute and the Centre for Museology at the University of Manchester in England, and the Getty Research Institute in the States. I will always be thankful for funding I received over the years from the American Association of University Women, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Arts Council England, and the Canada Council.

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