Mardi is a native Californian. After a childhood in Carmel spending her time at the beaches, rivers, canyons and mountains of that area and south through Big Sur she moved to San Luis Obispo.

She attended Cal Poly and received a Bachelor of Science degree in social science and a Standard Teaching Credential. During those years she attended art classes at Cuesta College. She had a career as a parent educator and as a Montessori preschool teacher.

Mardi has lived for the past thirty years in rural Arroyo Grande. Her love of plants, especially California native plants, can be seen in her extensive garden surrounding her late 19th century home she shares with her husband.

Throughout her life Mardi has traveled extensively along Coast Highway One bordering the Pacific Ocean and Highway 101 through the Salinas Valley. She has camped throughout the Los Padres National Forest, Carrizo Plain and the Sierra Madre mountains. Her most passionate destination has been the Santa Lucia mountains of the Ventana Wilderness. Here, the spirit of the mountains has been an inspiration for her work.

Most recently she has attended botanical illustration, drawing and watercolor classes at Allan Hancock College with Sandra Kay Johnson. Here she discovered a way to communicate her life long experiences with nature using colored pencils and watercolors.

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