I was once asked: “In one or two words, what means the most to you in life?” The answer, and the realization, came to me in an instant:
Creative Opportunity!
My artistic expression, often three-dimensional, is an effort to create beauty and simplicity in functional objects. Over a lifetime I’ve worked with many media. I learned knitting and sewing at my mother’s knee, sewing clothes, knitting sweaters and sox, working on a variety of embroidery projects. These led me to my interest in ornamentation and artwear.

My grandmother introduced me to travel — across the country by train at 12 years old, two months in Europe plus North Africa when I was 18 years old, as well as many solo and group trips beyond.

A recent Creative Opportunity was presented by decades-long collections of yarns, fabrics, ethnic beads, shells and treasured tchotchkes. That work combined them into jewelry using techniques from textile arts, beading and metal smithing.

Now I’ve returned to my sewing background – creating improv pieced quilting studies as small wall art.

As I look back I see how influenced I’ve been by family, including my father’s engineering! Yes, figuring out how to carry out my creative visions often takes a bit of engineering!

My work has always been about the natural world and how we humans inhabit it, for better or worse. Some works have been abstracted landscapes, painted and drawn on vintage maritime maps, or digital prints of neon TV static collaged with prints of ink drawn forests, turned into paintings with layers of acrylic. More recently, I have returned to an earlier subject of mine: In the 1990s, with the magnolia tree in my front yard as my muse, I painted flowers. Now, while I still create landscapes, I’ve begun exploring the botanical world again. Flower paintings come with a deep history; flowers themselves are famously symbolic. They convey beauty, joy, vibrant life, the comfort of home interiors, spiritual transcendence, and also the ultimate briefness of life, beauty, and joy. They come to celebrations as well as memorials and leave-takings, signs of connection and loss.

John O’Dononhue defined beauty as: “anything in the presence of which we feel more alive.” This aliveness is translated through me in these watercolor paintings. Flowers have one basic purpose – to be alluring, which they do to many of us, including me. Striking light seals the deal. Whether obvious or not, my art also tells a deeper story of how beauty speaks to soul – the grander story of how being human and having the inclination to gawk translates in watercolor, through one soul living in this precarious moment. I am here to be brave for beauty.

Along with making these paintings, I love to teach and observe the creative process. I believe that acquiring paint handling skills, color and how to really see is the means to a much more important end. There is no one else who is ever going to make the art that is in each of us. Every time we put our brush into a pool of paint and touch it to our paper, it’s us. It carries our mark, like the tone of our voice and the way we sign our name. And the more we do it, the more refined our expression becomes, the more vivid is the illumination of our essence to the watercolor paper. Our consciousness lives in the work we make. With the body of work I’ve created, I see and hold myself altogether differently. I experience a level of freedom that I didn’t imagine was possible. I am more myself than ever by allowing myself to grow through my paintings. And I see this happening with the artists who regularly paint in my groups.

I am quite aware of the evolution that is yet to come in the work that emerges through me. I am infinitely grateful for the opportunity to make art and for the support that is carrying it forth.

Every few years I reinvent myself artistically. There are so many mediums to try and so many different levels of understanding and interpretation. Mostly I enjoy working with found objects and much of my former life as an archaeologist appears in my pieces. The physicality of mosaic really appeals to me and the optionns for creating new processes are endless.

Painting is what I do to keep myself centered, happy, at peace. I feel compelled to keep striving to improve my skills and to continue to grow as an artist. I feel lucky to have a studio and the time to pursue my quest. I enjoy the challenge of plein air painting, but enjoy time in my studio exploring other subjects and playing with surrealism. Drawing and painting the human figure is a calling also. Come by and see my work and have a conversation about art.

People say my paintings make them smile, and I’m delighted they have that effect. My style is inspired by my previous work in the graphic design industry. Much of my work takes food as the subject matter for contemporary paintings. I am drawn to simple objects, most notably desserts, and like to establish good color relationships between light and shadow.

Art is the magic of creating something tangible from thoughts, passions, and emotions, using color, line and forms to shape abstractions into an inspiration of visual expression. My art explores my travel experiences, adventures, observations, and emotions with the goal of communicating a passion for the beauty and richness of the land and a desire to live a positive expression of life.

I have been drawing since I was a young child exploring lots of subjects, from portraits, landscapes, a single rose, a chair and abstract patterns.

For many years now a grid of half inch squares in light pencil all over the canvas or sheet of paper lays the foundation. I pay attention to each and every square, in a very ritualistic manner.

I liken this process to my daily tai chi practice. The form is set and my task is to simply pay attention and mindfully go through the slow moving dance, learn from and absorb the form, embrace the ƒchiƒ created, and finally, let it go, without attachment.

Increasingly the work have become, “Prayers For Peace”. “Let us take care of the Elders for they have come a long way, let us take care of the Children for they have a long way to go, let us take care of those In Between, for it is they who do the work”, is an African Prayer I’ve frequently incorporated or on occasion the text from the Tao Te Ching emerges…, and/or another Chair.

My work is made up of a wide range of materials, often using whatever is at hand. The pieces include recycled papers which are painted, cut up and collaged – often mixed with silk, thread, acrylic, graphite and ink. I also am a sculptor, working in recycled metals. I am a firm believer in using what I have, and no scrap is too small.

My resulting works are highly textural and full of color. They provide an element of surprise for the viewer when the details are seen up close. I look to use simple materials and enjoy the experimentation and the challenge of elevating them to something that is other.

I’m a figurative artist in love with the landscape. I prefer to be outside sketching and painting with watercolors but also work in my studio on large figurative and slightly abstract paintings with the intent of uniting the figure and landscape with emotion.

While painting I imagine how the scene is moving and try to convey that onto the canvas. The primary sources of my inspiration are landscapes and whimsical animals with humor and hope mixed in.