I am an art historian who loves to travel, write, garden, cook, shop, dance, practice yoga and much, much more.  My entire life I have chased after beauty in all of its forms. The greatest pleasure in life for me is looking at beautiful things.

I have a Ph.D. in the history of art and, while my area of specialty is American 19th-century paintings and sculpture, that slim area hardly defines my interests!  I’ve been privileged to curate in some of this country’s finest museums, including the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. I have also taught at the college level.

But my love of all things beautiful goes beyond two and three-dimensional paintings, sculpture, and architecture and my passion runs deeply toward horticulture, travel, literature, dance, yoga and one million other things not least of which is my continual fascination with all things Italian. I’m both a floral designer and garden designer and am a Master Gardener in Colorado.

I live in Florence. I live to travel, having been to Italy some 20+ times, sometimes on grants for research and other times just for pleasure; what can be better than seeing Michelangelo’s Sistine ceiling on scaffolding or  luxuriating on the Amalfi coast?   Well, hiking through Provence comes close, as does riding across the Sahara desert on a camel. Watching flamenco in  Spain and listening to fado in Portugal were also wonderful, as was traipsing around the UK, Denmark and Japan. I was very fortunate to spend about a month in India.

I was so fortunate to spend the last 8 years living, studying, and practicing yoga in Firenze and enjoying the fine Italian art of dolce fare niente.  I got to garden at the Boboli while living there.

I’ll be spending the next few months living in America, where I’ve become a mahjongg maven and retraining as a Master Gardener. I walk and walk and enjoy the beautiful residential neighborhood I am lucky enough to call home in Colorado. I’m also busy writing a book about my very unlikely life and furthering my studies on all things Italian and venturing in the wide world of French life and culture.