In 1971, having burned out from hospital work during Viet Nam, the choice was continue on a nursing track, go to medical school or take a look back at my love of Art. Wellesley afforded me the opportunity to immerse myself in all of its studio and art history courses. I worked part time in a clinic to support myself. With the help of Student Aide and an aunt who was a Wellesley alumna, I graduated in six years having taken every art course offered. My mentors and advisors were Richard Yarde and James Wilson Rayen, two distinctly different artists. In order to protect my earlier career I did a doctorate at Harvard, but experiencing the absence of the making of art I returned to the studio once again. With Yarde and Rayen back critiquing my work I was able to finally portray in paint my fascination with the mind body and human relationships.

My painting is an emotional response to color, light, and human experience. I set up for solution artistic problems that combine images and painting techniques from the past with the present, that define space through unexpected uses of color and line, that generate for the viewer a sense of psychological ambiguity and timelessness, that comment on human interaction. My representation of the figure has been informed by studio life drawing and by knowledge of anatomy and psychology gained through careers in surgical and psychological fields. I want the viewer to see what I have seen, to think about the person and their situation rather than let pure representational poses close down possibilities. To this end, the majority of my portraits are not frontal. Gestures, body language.... a moment in time is meant to remind the viewer of some of the subtleties in life. Placing the image in a space defined by color but void of background objects presses the viewer to focus on the person or his/her situation.

I am fortunate that my commissions include the official portrait of Harvard Dean Jerome T. Murphy, Cambridge Mayor/State Representative Alice Wolf and Hall of Fame basketball coach Patrick J. Riley. My life size portraits of Hall of Fame catcher Carlton Fisk and pitcher Pedro Martinez are in the Permanent Collection of the National Portrait Gallery Washington D. C. I am a member of The National Association of Women Artists, Who's Who in American Women and Who’s Who In America. But perhaps most important is that as a member of The Harvard Arts in Education Advisory Council I have the opportunity to support Masters students whose goal it is to keep the Arts in all of Education. In this way I can give back some of what I am so lucky to have learned. My on line gallery is www.millerhavens.com and I have the joy of working in a studio right in Harvard Square.