What’s your favorite PDS memory?

“Getting married on the lawn of Colross. Another great memory I have is when my son got married at PDS in a traditional Indian wedding. He rode in on a white horse wearing a turban. It was down by where the football fields are, and it had rained and rained and rained. PDS said we could use the graduation tent, and it turns out that PDS didn’t even use the graduation tent because it had rained so much. But then it stopped the day of the wedding, and then started again and the water came up from underneath and the chairs and tables were sinking in the mud. We had a great time anyway.”

Where’s your favorite place in PDS?

“In the atrium. I taught in the basement of Colross and the basement of the Lower School and I used to come in in the morning and it was dark and when I would leave it was dark and I had no windows, and when we moved the photo studio where they built this new addition suddenly there was this atrium filled with light. I love the skylight in my classroom but what I really still love is to stand out in that atrium. It’s like an enormous light box. It’s so beautiful.”

What’s your favorite thing about PDS?

“The people. I teach great students. I love the kids, and I work with an incredible group of people.”

What are your passions besides photography?

“My grandchildren, and I’m also a big reader. Probably one of the most important things to me in life is travel and seeing how other people live. I’ve worked many years for humanitarian organizations all over the world, and I’ve gotten to meet the most amazing people.”

Did you always know you wanted to be a photographer?

“No. I went to art school for painting. I graduated and started teaching art at PDS. I taught all lower and middle school art classes. I took photo in college but I was really thinking of being a painter. Then when I got married and had my children, I discovered that photography is much better suited for a woman, because even though I put in just as much time, it wasn’t dependent on good light and I didn’t have to deal with these big canvases. I could photograph my life. Then after everyone went to bed at night I would go down into the dark room and work every night. I could also have my prints washing while I was cooking dinner. I think that’s why there have been so many great women photographers since the beginning. You can incorporate your life into it a lot more.”

What got you into teaching?

“I didn’t think I could make a living as anything but an art teacher. I started out teaching art and then I switched after I was here for a number of years. Photography is my passion, but the products I produce are my students. So, I always think of their work as being my biggest accomplishment, not my own photography, which I have very little time to do.”