kHyal

First in her class to read, and a top-notch vocabulary student, she combined her skills with words and pictures to secretly write and illustrate books about the loneliness of being different, which she hid under her mattress. She spent her years in grammar and high school immersed in art classes and winning any creative competitions that she entered. She was repeatedly called upon by teachers to design school exhibits and posters, and relished the time outside of class to work indepently and focus on her creative vision, while others toiled over dull lessons.

Rebelling against her artist father and RISD film school brother, her first year in college was in an Equine Studies program in upstate New York. As a teenager she had trained her beloved Appaloosa Quarter Horse, Nocona, in barrel racing and other gymkhana events. Based on her success in competitions and the natural affinity she possessed with horses, kHyal was hired at age 16 to train a yearling stallion for the National Quarter Horse Congress. She was often called upon to help her friends assess and remedy the bad habits of their too spirited misbehaving mounts, and spent most of her teenage years at the stables.

Ultimately, rural life did not appeal to kHyal, and she moved to Boston to study fashion. Irreverent, colorful and cutting-edge, her designs were well received; yet her restless spirit was cause for constant change and movement. She enrolled in Emerson College where she studied Mass Communication, took classes at the Art Institute of Boston, School of the Museum of Fine Arts, and received a certificate in post-production at the Boston Film and Video Foundation. Understanding that her innate creativity was precious and original, she was careful never to take "fine art" classes, only commercial graphic design, photography and video to learn processes, and a marketable trade.

In the early eighties, kHyal packed up and moved to Los Angeles, apprenticing with Richard Tobey to learn fine art restoration and 18th and 19th century picture frame reproduction techniques. She finished reproduction frames for the L.A. County Museum, Getty Museum, and many private collectors and dealers. In 1984, kHyal moved to San Francisco and worked in art restoration and fine art sales, then back to Los Angeles to work as Richard Tobey's assistant, and in fine art sales for Joan Ankrum at the Ankrum Gallery in Beverly Hills. All the while she worked on her personal art in the wee hours of the morning, and in any open crevices of available time between working and collecting materials to create.

In 1985, kHyal moved back to Connecticut and has had a 20-year career as a graphic designer, art director, and creative director with clients spanning from GAP to MTV. Known for her edgy and innovative style, she specializes in playful, avant-garde and youth markets. She also continues to design and arbitrate fashion, with a custom line of retrofitted and repurposed modern vintage clothing and jewelry, and a contemporary line of graphics inspired by her highly personal, non-commericial fine art.