Most people these days call me Becky. But I've also gone by Becca, Reba, and Co-Tang. It's a nickname I picked up in college. Co-tang (hot coffee and cold tang combined) eased me into drinking black coffee. Not conventional, but I recommend you try it.
I grew up in Western Washington in an old house that my parents have gradually rebuilt. My older sister and younger brother are also very creative and organized in their own ways. Following high school, I attended Sheldon Jackson College in Sitka, Alaska. Just before it closed, I graduated with a BA in Outdoor Leadership and I minored in Art. After riding my bicycle across the country, I worked at a domestic violence shelter in Alaska. A bit later I worked at a camp in Idaho and drove school bus back home in Washington. In amongst all this I cooked at a substance abuse recovery center, cooked at the county jail, baked at a coffee shop/bakery, and a held a variety of jobs on campus.
While working at Camp Lutherhaven in Idaho, I met my husband. We were each lucky that the other hadn't been snatched up yet and we were married a year later. We finished building an 8 x 16' tiny house on wheels parked at my parents house just in time for our first born. Given the opportunity to work from home with my son, I started doing office work for our family's appliance repair business. As things progressed, we outgrew the tiny house and purchased an cozy old home nearby. Another kid came along who adores and also yells at her older brother.
2025 was a year of beginnings. We purchased Manning's Appliance Service from my retiring father. That transition consumed a lot of my time in 2024 and the extra work has tapered off in time to get one kid into middle school and another into kindergarten.
When I started my creative practice in earnest in 2021, I was primarily using watercolors. I've had fun with a variety of mediums including pen and ink, long exposure/composite photography, videography, music composition, ceramics, acrylics, and wood. There is one area of work that I have kept coming back to since 2014: printing. My current focus is rubber block printing, Japanese vinyl block printing, and screen printing. I've adapted a wringer washer that I now use as a printing press.
I've always had a passion for mail and writing letters. Many of my friends and family have been getting happy little envelopes in the mail with prints and letters for quite some time. Slug mail is an important part of my art practice and I am so excited to send it out to many more people.
Some day I'd like to have a presence at markets and festivals to sell my screen printed totes and prints and offer a new service tattooing your clothes. I'd bring my collection of hand-carved rubber blocks and you would bring your clothes.
I also enjoy gardening, bird watching (including our bantam chickens), reading, family outdoor outings, our church community, creating custom organizational systems for my home, and weekly dinners with my extended family. Also, puzzles are amazing!
