Once I graduated, I started working as an adjunct instructor, which meant a lot of time on the road, and I found that to be at first a real inspiration to want to think more about the illusion of space. I was seeing so much landscape. Every season, it all changes. And you'd go from bare ground to these subtle lines in the fields, finally it's over your head and then it's rustling and it's gone again and there's snow. And I was thinking that the whole creative process is tied up in nature, really.

It's very rich visually, living in Iowa. We don't have mountains and we don't have ocean, but we have amazing skies. The sky here has been a big influence. When I was in Missouri, I always looked to the trees—and I still do—but I also look to the sky now more and to the light.

I feel like Iowa's been really pretty supportive. I think as with anything, you reach a certain level and you need to grow more, and so then of course, I can go out of Iowa. But when I went to Baltimore, and with the American Craft Shows and so on, I learned that a lot of these artists were just like me—living in the mountains in Colorado or wherever in isolated areas, and then would come out every now and then, and grow and ship.

You can be an artist any place you want to be, you just have to be doing it.