Back in my corporate days, I always signed my emails “rjo”—short, easy, and totally me. When it came time to name my art studio, it felt right to keep it. rjostudio is a nod to where I’ve been and where I’m headed—still me, just a lot more colorful.

I’m an encaustic artist whose work is shaped by a deep love for pattern, geometry, and visual rhythm. Drawing inspiration from quilting traditions, textile logic, ethnographic forms, and elemental shapes found in the natural world, I create layered compositions that sit comfortably between structure and improvisation.

My process begins with digital design, where I sketch circles, squares, arcs, and repeating motifs to explore balance, tension, and palette. That design is printed onto thin rice paper, fused to a panel coated with clear encaustic medium, and then developed dot by dot using a heated wax stylus. Up close, each piece reveals texture, movement, and thousands of deliberate marks; from across the room, the geometry and color take over.

A lifelong mixed-media maker, I’ve always been drawn to materials that invite touch—fabric, thread, paper, wax—and to techniques that reward patience and precision. I taught myself as I went, deepening my practice through workshops, conferences, and the generous guidance of other artists. That hybrid background continues to shape the work: part craft, part design, part meditation.

• Today I split my time between two creative homes:
  • Artisans Asylum in Boston, a collaborative, energy-filled maker community
  • My studio in Provincetown, Massachusetts, where the quiet rhythm of the town fuels long stretches of focused work

Through rjostudio, I bring all of these threads together—pattern, geometry, texture, and process—to create contemporary encaustic paintings built one dot at a time.