I currently reside in the middle of the San Juan mountains in the small community of Lake City, CO. I operate my creative design and printing business from my home so I can raise my eight year old daughter and infant son while working from home. I am very focused on non-profit and small business needs with the intention of making the most of typical small business budget restraints. I try to educate and teach my clients how to manage a lot of their own marketing needs once I have designed their base package by encouraging their own web site maintenance, collaborative opportunities within the community with other businesses to share costs and utilizing free advertising opportunities on the web. I offer free advice to anyone in need and am willing to adjust my rates per client budget restrictions.

I am heavily involved in community volunteering including recently being the Promotion Committee Chair for the local Main Street program, Lake City DIRT, for the last three years, designer for the Lake City Museum and many other non-profits in our community. I have been awarded the Bronze Presidential Award twice and the Silver Presidential Award for over 700 hours of volunteer work with Lake City DIRT in the past five years. I was also nominated and won Volunteer of the Year for Lake City DIRT in 2009. All of which I am very proud, but had it not been for my long past in the field of creative arts would I be where I am today.

I was fortunate enough to begin my artistic career relatively early at the age of 10 with advance art courses in school and at the Fort Worth Museum with such renowned artists as Helen Silvestri, Chris Haley and Mona Miller. I continued my education with these artists throughout high school, receiving high recognition in city competitions and most notably for my lost wax jewelry designs which I began to sell at age 12. By age 15, I was working for the family business of packaging design and sales. I developed strong skills in design which I pursued as a major at Texas Tech University from 1991 to 1995. While attending Tech, I worked in a custom framing shop which gave me additional skills which I utilize to this day with work presentations.

In 1995, I decided to make a major life style and education change by moving to my present home town, Lake City, Colorado. I briefly transferred to Western State College for a semester and half before settling at Colorado State University in 1997, where I completed my Fine Arts Degree with a minor in English and Art History. This change lead to may other opportunities including studying under great design professors such as John Gravdahl, Bob Coontz and Phil Risbeck, with additional emphasis in photography under Gary Huibregtse. While finishing my degree, I was employed as an ad setter for a local small paper where I learned the “old school” techniques of wax pasting an entire paper together for print (amazingly I can and still do use skills learned at this job). After graduating in 1999 into an over stocked work pool of graphic designers in Fort Collins, I was fortunate enough to get a job at a small commercial print shop where I worked in all areas from graphic design to running presses. I learned all the ins and outs of how a print shop works and all the little secrets held within that an everyday “Joe” doesn’t know to ask when doing large commercial print jobs. I took all my knowledge of commercial printing with me and share it with all my current and new clients when I began my home graphic design business, Lucid grafiks, in 2002 after having my first child.

In 2003, my husband and I relocated to Lake City to take advantage of the small town atmosphere and opportunity to be at home more with our kids. I started APH creative design, developed a strong relationships with businesses all over the state of Colorado including three publishing houses which I design book covers and desk top publishing for, I am the exclusive designer for Living with Loss magazine in Montrose and Center for Loss in Fort Collins, as well as many small businesses and organizations in Lake City and surrounding areas.