By day, Alva is a costumer for Clackamas Community College and Clackamas Reperatory Theatre. She is the Artistic Director for Mr. B’s Puppet Theatre, featuring her Sicilian-style string marionettes.

By night, she is a Steward of the Imagination and an Ambassador of Profound Silliness, evidence of which is found in her various creations from both now and long ago—masks, marionettes, figures, forms, collages, and remedies from her garden.

Her aspiration to be a plant is not yet realized, but Alva is working on it.