My work uses traditional imagery, text and painting methodology to examine the idealized view of transformation which we find in legends, myths, fairytales. My paintings acknowledge the seductive power of beauty, brocades and jewels in t radi t ional depi c t ions of transmutation from mundane life. Yet I offer an aspect of caution toward the serenity of idealized beauty by revealing accompanying elements which can not only cocoon, but bind and suffocate.