At age 5, Saundra experienced an epiphany that opened her heart to aesthetics and wonder. She luxuriated in the forms and colors of Hanna-Barbera and still appreciates the influence Modernism had on the artists who invented The Jetsons and The Flintstones. A few years later, she remembers being awestruck by a painting of Caravaggio’s found inside a family bible. She eventually began to fall in love with Art History – particularly Impressionism and Expressionism – and in this way, art would become a portal to true freedom and joy in her life.

Saundra began formal art studies in 1989 at the University of Texas in Austin where she had two mentors, Peter Saul and Carolee Schneeman. From 1990 – 1992, Saundra worked on her MFA at the School of Art Institute of Chicago. Following her father’s suicide, she began painting in a kind of desperation to find meaning behind events in the world. She found the greatest process available that would help her overcome darkness and Nihilism – painting in the face of fear and the unknown.

Recently, in a project undertaken by the Columbia City/Hillman City Arts District, she was awarded a prize for her piece, Ontological Surgeon. In 2021 the Artsfund in Seattle chose one of her pieces for the King County Health and Wellness online sociological study, and the year before was also a participant in Saatchi’s The Other Art Fair in Dallas, Texas. The evolution of her work continues today in Seattle, Washington.