njm

in the summer of 2010 i came to San Miguel de Allende alone with a suitcase and my little dog, not knowing anyone or a word of Spanish but determined to try make a ‘new’ better life for myself. i found a house in Colonia San Antonio and did some minor renovations to it like adding a beautiful carved stone cantera fireplace and colorful talavera tiles to the fountain.

In the summer of 2010 I came to San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, not knowing anyone or a word of Spanish but determined to make a ‘new’ life. Because of my experience learning French as an adult I found learning Spanish very easy. Within a few months I had mastered Spanish well enough to communicate in almost any situation. I found a 5 bedroom house in colonia San Antonio and did some minor renovations to it like adding a beautiful cantera fireplace and tiles to the fountain, then turned it into a hostel, renting rooms to female tourists. After 2 years in San Miguel I found a bat infested beach house in Troncones that had been abandoned for 10 years and proceeded to renovate it inside and out, including the pool which was in ruins. That renovation was extremely challenging, but I have never felt so alive! My leadership, project management & Spanish skills improved greatly while managing the team of Mexican workers that did the initial renovations and continual maintenance. From 2012 I lived full time at the beach house and for 2 high seasons operated a small business called Casa Creativa which offered painting on the beach, drinks and food. During the past 4 years in Mexico I have continued to service existing and new website clients on a freelance basis.

After 9/11 and the ensuing chaos, worried about property values declining, we sold our house in CT and moved back to Montreux, Switzerland in December of 2001. i found another ‘diamond in the rough’ commercial space and renovated it to become my art studio and freelance web development office. There I created and maintained websites for Canal+ Switzerland (a french cable company), the annual month-long Christmas Market and a variety of other clients. When i was not doing web related work i was doing all kinds of freelance art projects and got well known in the community for my creative talents after i was commissioned to paint several huge murals, decorated storefront windows for christmas (Bang & Olafson), and offered painting workshops in my studio. My husband, perhaps inspired by my entrepreneurial freedom, left Saatchi and in 2006 we opened our own advertising agency together named Cuckoo Media. Once again i embarked on another major renovation, turning an old fire extinguisher warehouse into a trendy loft office space. i continued to give painting workshops in my studio one day a week, but was otherwise occupied with maintaining the administrative part of our agency, managing employees, and servicing our clients website needs until 2010 when my husband and i separated.

after nearly 7 years in Switzerland, my husband and i were missing the states and my oldest son dreamed of going to high school in America, so we moved to Glastonbury Connecticut and bought our first house. i guess you could say that the fixer-upper was my second big renovation project! i spent the first few years in CT raising my family, continuing textile art projects, fine art painting, painting signs freelance in the community, mastering my first computer – an apple imac and mastering the Adobe design suite (photoshop, illustrator etc). in 1997 i passed the CT realtors license exam and worked at DeWolfe real estate as a junior agent. in 1999 Prudential recruited me to be their head receptionist and graphic designer, helping senior brokers prepare listing brochures.

in 1988 my third son Miles was born and i spent a year or so after his birth nurturing him and my other children and learning to communicate in French while my husband worked as art director at Saatchi & Saatchi advertising. my French skills improved dramatically when i got a part time job in 1990 as a hairdresser technician at an upscale salon called Vogue in Lausanne, Switzerland; one of my clients being David Bowie – i helped him maintain his blonde hair! meanwhile, the fine artist within re-awakened when my mother-in-law gave me a lot of beautiful european fabric samples which in my spare time i transformed into huge textile art pieces.

In 1983 i moved to Brooklyn New York with my Swiss boyfriend, recently graduated from a Seattle art school, so that he could pursue a career in advertising. I also gave birth to my second son Sebastien that summer. During the year of 1984 i worked part time in a West Village Manhattan salon called Mingus, until in spring of 1985 I found an inexpensive commercial space at 89 Atlantic Ave in Brooklyn, renovated it to funky perfection inside and out, and opened my own artsy beauty salon called Talking Head. There i managed the business including a team of 3 other hairdressers and 2 manicurists. during this period my baby daddy worked in some prestigious advertising agencies as junior art director and i learned many things about myself: that i had a knack for making something out of nothing, transforming a run down space into something beautiful, that i had a strong creative and technical ability, and possessed natural skills regarding business book-keeping and managing people. i thoroughly enjoyed my first entrepreneurial project until 1988, pregnant again, i married and moved to Switzerland with my husband and our young growing family.

during the 70’s the hippy-dippy days of peace, love, sex and rock-n-roll influenced my young self perhaps a bit too much. i gave birth to my first child Jason in 1978 and said good-bye to any dreams of going to college. Faced with the reality and responsibilities of parenthood i understood that i needed to acquire some job skills quickly so i moved across country to Seattle where some friends lived in a shared house, enrolled my son in Montessori daycare and myself in Cosmetology school. a year later in 1980 i passed the hairdressers license test and got a job in a Seattle salon where i continued to learn and perfect the technical skills of the trade.

i am the oldest of 3 kids raised by my single parent mother. although we were poor and living in an underprivelegd situation, my mom encouraged my natural creative drawing ability and taught me to read by age 4, so when i entered kindergarten i was considered a gifted child in the 99th percentile. adults would often give me a classic book or an encyclopedia and ask me to read which i would do with ease, or they’d ask me to draw something which i would do with pleasure. the respect and approval i got from others gave me great self confidence from a very young age. during my childhood school years i was a straight A student, winning many scholastic awards.