My Journey
I was fortunate to grow up in an environment that taught me the value of hard work, practice, and dedication to my musical craft. With the support of my parents, teachers, and mentors, I learned that creativity could be more than a passion—it could be a way to create, teach, inspire, entertain, serve a community, and build a livelihood.
At age nineteen, I established my sole proprietorship and opened a business bank account. After my freshman year studying fiddle at Berklee College of Music in Boston, I returned home to Clearfield County, Pennsylvania with a goal: find a way to earn enough money to continue my education. I began building a small but intentional income strategy around live performance, teaching, and album sales. I also learned to pursue scholarships and funding opportunities through grant writing. That combination of work, resourcefulness, and community support ultimately helped me earn my degree.
One of my earliest and most meaningful supporters was the late Clearfield County businessman and philanthropist Ray Walker. My dad and I performed at several events he hosted at Walker Gardens and later in his home. When I was trying to figure out how to pay for college, I wrote Mr. Walker a letter describing my hopes for creating music and, eventually, creating a community space for creatives. He believed in that vision and invested in me. His generosity remains an important part of the story behind what I am building today.
From Performer to Entrepreneur
Music was already a significant part of my life before college. While attending public school and participating in sports, marching band, choir, and musicals, I maintained a busy performance schedule. My dad and I performed as a duo at events including the Elliot Park Arts Festival and Boalsburg Arts Festival. During my senior year, I also played fiddle with the Dusty Trout, traveling throughout Pennsylvania to perform at venues such as Over the Mountain and Flickerwood Winery.
That same year, I recorded fiddle on the Dusty Trout’s debut album, Fly Reel, as well as on an album with another original group, Young Folks.
I recorded my first solo album as I graduated from high school. I recorded a song I had the opportunity to co-write with my friend Ronda Stiles, supporting veteran PTSD awareness, as well as my album of original songs. My engineer, Eric Morelli, was a trusted friend and mentor who had already worked with me on the Dusty Trout and Young Folks projects.
At the time, Eric’s studio was a small shed that he skillfully transformed into a sound space in his parents’ backyard, fully equipped with professional recording gear. I slept on a cot beside his mixing desk and recorded the album over several days, fueled by French-pressed coffee, creativity, excitement.
That experience taught me that meaningful creative work doesn’t always begin with perfect circumstances. Sometimes it begins with resourcefulness, good people, and the willingness to make something with what you have.
Building a Creative Life
Since recording that first album, my career has taken me through many different corners of the music industry.
I graduated from Berklee College of Music, spent two years teaching music in Hong Kong, operated a private music lesson studio in Curwensville, organized and fronted an acoustic tour with Berklee classmates, performed at festivals, taught hundreds of students, worked in concert operations, and stepped into arts administration through my directorship of the Curwensville Days Old Time Fiddlers Contest.
I have taught fiddle, voice, ukulele, banjo, and guitar through private lessons, workshops, and community programs. At my Curwensville studio, I taught as many as 30 individual lessons a week while also leading ukulele classes, a preschool music program, and fiddlers’ workshops. With the support of friends and community partners, I also created children’s music workshops, songwriting retreats, and other opportunities for young musicians.
One particularly formative experience was my time working in concert operations at the Berklee Performance Center. That position gave me valuable experience in ticketing, venue operations, and the business side of presenting live music. These experiences helped me understand that being an artist often means wearing many hats—and that learning the business of creativity is just as important as developing the craft itself.
Motherhood, Music & The Story of Kids Jam
Today, I am in a different season of life: mothering.
Becoming a mother has changed the way I think about work, success, creativity, and time. My goal is not simply to build a career for myself, but to create a life that allows me to provide for my daughter while also surrounding her with meaningful, enriching experiences.
Kids Jam began with my own family.
When my stepdaughters were home with me for the summer, I was pregnant with my first child and thinking about how I could bring the girls into my creative work. I wanted them to experience music as something we could make together—not something they had to sit on the sidelines and watch me do.
As I connected with other like-minded moms in my community, the idea for a local Kids Jam began to take shape.
But the concept wasn’t entirely new to me.
As a college student, I worked behind the scenes for a free community program called Kids Jam at Berklee. The program was collaboratively operated through the college, with oversight from the music education faculty and administrative support from student employees in the box office. I helped with parent communications, scheduling, check-in, and other administrative responsibilities.
Because I was also a music education student, my professors gave me the opportunity to step into the classroom and lead the program for preschool-aged children. It was an early experience in designing and facilitating a musical workshop for young children—and one that stayed with me.
Years later, in 2023, I brought that experience home.
While pregnant, I rented a small room inside another local business to create a makeshift classroom for my private students and Kids Jam. My stepdaughters were part of those early days, too. They still remember the giant chalkboard wall their dad and I painted together—a simple, joyful space where we could make music, learn, and play.
That little classroom became part of the foundation for what I’m building now.
Kids Jam is about giving children a place to experience music through play, participation, and community—and giving families a place to make those memories together.
After I had my daughter, I transitioned my private teaching business online so I could stay home with her and my new family in the evenings. I eventually returned to in-person instruction through a shared studio arrangement. More recently, I established a lesson residency program at CAST, inspired by the guest-professor lesson model I experienced through Berklee’s American Roots program.
This season has challenged me to rethink what a creative career can look like. Rather than choosing between motherhood and artistry, I am building a model that makes room for both.
The Beginning of the PA Indie Artist Network
More of Allegheny Artwork’s identity began to take shape on January 17, 2026, when independent artists gathered at the Clearfield Arts Studio Theatre for the first Indie Artists’ Free Music Production Clinic. Local musicians, producers, engineers, educators, and artists came together for an open discussion about the creative and technical process of making recorded music.
The response was encouraging—and revealing. The networking hour that followed made something very clear: there is a deep desire for more opportunities for artists in our region to connect, learn, collaborate, and create together.
We are establishing a platform where artists can develop their craft, create professional media, share their stories, collaborate across disciplines, and build sustainable creative careers without having to leave the Pennsylvania Wilds to find meaningful opportunities.
Creating a Community Around Creativity
Collaboration is central to my vision for Allegheny Artworks.
The Allegheny Artworks Show will bring together artists from our region through conversations, songwriting, performances, and behind-the-scenes looks at the creative process. The goal is to create more than a podcast or video series. I want to create a living archive of the artists, stories, and creative work emerging from this part of Pennsylvania.
The show will also create opportunities for local businesses to participate in and support the arts through professional advertising, jingles, video commercials, and other creative media produced through in house, produced by Second Fiddle Studio/
By creating high-quality digital content, we can help artists tell their stories while also giving them professional promotional assets they can use to grow their own careers.
The Pennsylvania Wilds
The Pennsylvania Wilds has always felt like home to me.
When I lived in Hong Kong, I missed Pennsylvania’s woods deeply. I lived on the 38th floor of an apartment overlooking Victoria Harbour. It was an incredible experience, and I learned a tremendous amount during my years abroad, but I also discovered just how important this landscape is to my creativity and sense of place.
Nature quiets my mind and makes room for ideas.
That is one of the reasons I am pursuing a long-term vision for a destination recording and creative space in the Pennsylvania Wilds. With tourism and economic development continuing to create new opportunities throughout the region, I believe there is an opportunity to build a professional creative destination where artists can come to record, collaborate, learn, and experience the landscape that inspires the work.
The Next Album
My second album is being created in a very different season of life than my first.
After leaving Berklee, many of my peers moved to established music hubs such as Nashville and Los Angeles to build creative careers. I chose a different path. When I left my teaching position in Hong Kong, I stepped away from the classroom because I wanted more flexibility to engage directly with the music I love.
The album I’m creating now is deeply connected to that decision.
It reflects years of growth as a musician, teacher, performer, mother, and entrepreneur. My experiences performing with acoustic musicians, fronting a rock band, teaching music technology, producing content, and collaborating with other artists have all influenced the way I hear and create music today.
The process is also connected to my larger vision for Allegheny Artworks: proving that meaningful, professional creative work can be built here.
Looking Ahead
The long-term vision extends beyond music.
I am interested in creating a creative ecosystem rooted in the Pennsylvania Wilds—one that connects music, education, storytelling, entrepreneurship, agriculture, and community.
That vision includes a professional recording studio and creative space, educational programming, artist residencies and collaborations, digital media production, and eventually a place where visitors can experience the landscape, food, music, and creative culture of our region.
Even our family’s interest in growing micro-greens, mushrooms, eggs, and other farm products is part of this broader philosophy: building something sustainable, local, creative, and connected to the land.
I don’t have every piece figured out yet—and I don’t think I need to.
I’ve learned that entrepreneurship is less about having a perfect plan and more about recognizing an opportunity, believing in a vision, doing the work, and allowing each chapter to inform the next.
From a teenager playing fiddle at local festivals, to a college student writing grants to stay at Berklee, to a teacher in Hong Kong, to a mother building a creative business in rural Pennsylvania, my journey has always been about finding ways to turn creativity into something meaningful.
Allegheny Artworks is the next chapter.
And I hope you’ll be part of it.
I was fortunate to grow up in an environment that taught me the value of hard work, practice, and dedication to my musical craft. With the support of my parents, teachers, and mentors, I learned that creativity could be more than a passion—it could be a way to create, teach, inspire, entertain, serve a community, and build a livelihood.
At age nineteen, I established my sole proprietorship and opened a business bank account. After my freshman year studying fiddle at Berklee College of Music in Boston, I returned home to Clearfield County, Pennsylvania with a goal: find a way to earn enough money to continue my education. I began building a small but intentional income strategy around live performance, teaching, and album sales. I also learned to pursue scholarships and funding opportunities through grant writing. That combination of work, resourcefulness, and community support ultimately helped me earn my degree.
One of my earliest and most meaningful supporters was the late Clearfield County businessman and philanthropist Ray Walker. My dad and I performed at several events he hosted at Walker Gardens and later in his home. When I was trying to figure out how to pay for college, I wrote Mr. Walker a letter describing my hopes for creating music and, eventually, creating a community space for creatives. He believed in that vision and invested in me. His generosity remains an important part of the story behind what I am building today.
From Performer to Entrepreneur
Music was already a significant part of my life before college. While attending public school and participating in sports, marching band, choir, and musicals, I maintained a busy performance schedule. My dad and I performed as a duo at events including the Elliot Park Arts Festival and Boalsburg Arts Festival. During my senior year, I also played fiddle with the Dusty Trout, traveling throughout Pennsylvania to perform at venues such as Over the Mountain and Flickerwood Winery.
That same year, I recorded fiddle on the Dusty Trout’s debut album, Fly Reel, as well as on an album with another original group, Young Folks.
I recorded my first solo album as I graduated from high school. I recorded a song I had the opportunity to co-write with my friend Ronda Stiles, supporting veteran PTSD awareness, as well as my album of original songs. My engineer, Eric Morelli, was a trusted friend and mentor who had already worked with me on the Dusty Trout and Young Folks projects.
At the time, Eric’s studio was a small shed that he skillfully transformed into a sound space in his parents’ backyard, fully equipped with professional recording gear. I slept on a cot beside his mixing desk and recorded the album over several days, fueled by French-pressed coffee, creativity, excitement.
That experience taught me that meaningful creative work doesn’t always begin with perfect circumstances. Sometimes it begins with resourcefulness, good people, and the willingness to make something with what you have.
Building a Creative Life
Since recording that first album, my career has taken me through many different corners of the music industry.
I graduated from Berklee College of Music, spent two years teaching music in Hong Kong, operated a private music lesson studio in Curwensville, organized and fronted an acoustic tour with Berklee classmates, performed at festivals, taught hundreds of students, worked in concert operations, and stepped into arts administration through my directorship of the Curwensville Days Old Time Fiddlers Contest.
I have taught fiddle, voice, ukulele, banjo, and guitar through private lessons, workshops, and community programs. At my Curwensville studio, I taught as many as 30 individual lessons a week while also leading ukulele classes, a preschool music program, and fiddlers’ workshops. With the support of friends and community partners, I also created children’s music workshops, songwriting retreats, and other opportunities for young musicians.
One particularly formative experience was my time working in concert operations at the Berklee Performance Center. That position gave me valuable experience in ticketing, venue operations, and the business side of presenting live music. These experiences helped me understand that being an artist often means wearing many hats—and that learning the business of creativity is just as important as developing the craft itself.
Motherhood, Music & The Story of Kids Jam
Today, I am in a different season of life: mothering.
Becoming a mother has changed the way I think about work, success, creativity, and time. My goal is not simply to build a career for myself, but to create a life that allows me to provide for my daughter while also surrounding her with meaningful, enriching experiences.
Kids Jam began with my own family.
When my stepdaughters were home with me for the summer, I was pregnant with my first child and thinking about how I could bring the girls into my creative work. I wanted them to experience music as something we could make together—not something they had to sit on the sidelines and watch me do.
As I connected with other like-minded moms in my community, the idea for a local Kids Jam began to take shape.
But the concept wasn’t entirely new to me.
As a college student, I worked behind the scenes for a free community program called Kids Jam at Berklee. The program was collaboratively operated through the college, with oversight from the music education faculty and administrative support from student employees in the box office. I helped with parent communications, scheduling, check-in, and other administrative responsibilities.
Because I was also a music education student, my professors gave me the opportunity to step into the classroom and lead the program for preschool-aged children. It was an early experience in designing and facilitating a musical workshop for young children—and one that stayed with me.
Years later, in 2023, I brought that experience home.
While pregnant, I rented a small room inside another local business to create a makeshift classroom for my private students and Kids Jam. My stepdaughters were part of those early days, too. They still remember the giant chalkboard wall their dad and I painted together—a simple, joyful space where we could make music, learn, and play.
That little classroom became part of the foundation for what I’m building now.
Kids Jam is about giving children a place to experience music through play, participation, and community—and giving families a place to make those memories together.
After I had my daughter, I transitioned my private teaching business online so I could stay home with her and my new family in the evenings. I eventually returned to in-person instruction through a shared studio arrangement. More recently, I established a lesson residency program at CAST, inspired by the guest-professor lesson model I experienced through Berklee’s American Roots program.
This season has challenged me to rethink what a creative career can look like. Rather than choosing between motherhood and artistry, I am building a model that makes room for both.
The Beginning of the PA Indie Artist Network
More of Allegheny Artwork’s identity began to take shape on January 17, 2026, when independent artists gathered at the Clearfield Arts Studio Theatre for the first Indie Artists’ Free Music Production Clinic. Local musicians, producers, engineers, educators, and artists came together for an open discussion about the creative and technical process of making recorded music.
The response was encouraging—and revealing. The networking hour that followed made something very clear: there is a deep desire for more opportunities for artists in our region to connect, learn, collaborate, and create together.
We are establishing a platform where artists can develop their craft, create professional media, share their stories, collaborate across disciplines, and build sustainable creative careers without having to leave the Pennsylvania Wilds to find meaningful opportunities.
Creating a Community Around Creativity
Collaboration is central to my vision for Allegheny Artworks.
The Allegheny Artworks Show will bring together artists from our region through conversations, songwriting, performances, and behind-the-scenes looks at the creative process. The goal is to create more than a podcast or video series. I want to create a living archive of the artists, stories, and creative work emerging from this part of Pennsylvania.
The show will also create opportunities for local businesses to participate in and support the arts through professional advertising, jingles, video commercials, and other creative media produced through in house, produced by Second Fiddle Studio/
By creating high-quality digital content, we can help artists tell their stories while also giving them professional promotional assets they can use to grow their own careers.
The Pennsylvania Wilds
The Pennsylvania Wilds has always felt like home to me.
When I lived in Hong Kong, I missed Pennsylvania’s woods deeply. I lived on the 38th floor of an apartment overlooking Victoria Harbour. It was an incredible experience, and I learned a tremendous amount during my years abroad, but I also discovered just how important this landscape is to my creativity and sense of place.
Nature quiets my mind and makes room for ideas.
That is one of the reasons I am pursuing a long-term vision for a destination recording and creative space in the Pennsylvania Wilds. With tourism and economic development continuing to create new opportunities throughout the region, I believe there is an opportunity to build a professional creative destination where artists can come to record, collaborate, learn, and experience the landscape that inspires the work.
The Next Album
My second album is being created in a very different season of life than my first.
After leaving Berklee, many of my peers moved to established music hubs such as Nashville and Los Angeles to build creative careers. I chose a different path. When I left my teaching position in Hong Kong, I stepped away from the classroom because I wanted more flexibility to engage directly with the music I love.
The album I’m creating now is deeply connected to that decision.
It reflects years of growth as a musician, teacher, performer, mother, and entrepreneur. My experiences performing with acoustic musicians, fronting a rock band, teaching music technology, producing content, and collaborating with other artists have all influenced the way I hear and create music today.
The process is also connected to my larger vision for Allegheny Artworks: proving that meaningful, professional creative work can be built here.
Looking Ahead
The long-term vision extends beyond music.
I am interested in creating a creative ecosystem rooted in the Pennsylvania Wilds—one that connects music, education, storytelling, entrepreneurship, agriculture, and community.
That vision includes a professional recording studio and creative space, educational programming, artist residencies and collaborations, digital media production, and eventually a place where visitors can experience the landscape, food, music, and creative culture of our region.
Even our family’s interest in growing micro-greens, mushrooms, eggs, and other farm products is part of this broader philosophy: building something sustainable, local, creative, and connected to the land.
I don’t have every piece figured out yet—and I don’t think I need to.
I’ve learned that entrepreneurship is less about having a perfect plan and more about recognizing an opportunity, believing in a vision, doing the work, and allowing each chapter to inform the next.
From a teenager playing fiddle at local festivals, to a college student writing grants to stay at Berklee, to a teacher in Hong Kong, to a mother building a creative business in rural Pennsylvania, my journey has always been about finding ways to turn creativity into something meaningful.
Allegheny Artworks is the next chapter.
And I hope you’ll be part of it.
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