As a child I was always being told that I was too sensitive and that I let my imagination “run wild.” And it was true, I suppose. I had a very significant imaginary friend named Lulu Board and he lived inside of a shell that I kept in my pocket.

Still I am hypersensitve to stimuli. If I listen to deeply emotional music in the morning I am gutted for the day. The sound of motors make me crazy and I dislike fans blowing on me. I love natural beauty and people who strive to make this world a better and more beautiful place.

As for my art and life: when I can carve out a space and drop my armor, I am still too sensitive and I still let my imagination run wild … this is how my paintings emerge. My art lives inside of a shell that I carry around in the deepest pocket of my heart. It is my current Lulu Board and mental significant other.

I hold a BFA in Painting from the San Francisco Art Institute and studied toward an MFA while working at CalArts. I discontinued my studies to teach in Prague — the pull of living in the wake of a revolution that was velvet left no contest.

Pieces of my heart live in the US, Europe and Australia. Both in terms of people and places I love and in terms of my work being in collections (private and corporate) in those places.

I am now planted in the loamy soil 10 blocks from the Mississippi River in Minneapolis. I have a daughter whose every breath is a cause for celebration and I was lucky enough to have married my twin plane many years ago.

Thank you for being one of the Beauty Makers, and thank you for visiting my blog. Oh, and I love comments. {xo Alex}

Long ago, on the BART train, I heard an angel singing “Just put your feet down child!” It turned out to be nothing more than Kate Bush coming through my walkman, but those words have since run through my head every single day of my life. I am constantly in danger of floating off above the treeline, surveying life suspended upsidedown.