Painting nature has been my life’s work.  As I often paint flowers, and am female, I regularly receive the feedback that I must be a happy person.  I’m no more happy or unhappy than the next; but I do know that the act of painting, especially when I am immersed in nature, makes me feel complete.  It might be those experiences that make their way onto my panels. 

The way I push paint around a panel, feel the paint on my palette knife and brush, depends on my response to the weather, the season, my environment. The ephemeral quality of nature forces me to look hard, make firm decisions, yet explore the feeling of paint, the brush, and experiment with any tools available to me that enliven and energize the paint surface. 

I try hard to keep the surprises that make their way onto a panel and stop the painting a few steps before it is finished. Sometimes the image might look awkward and slightly underdone, but if it feels genuine and a reflection of how I see the world in that particular moment, then I want to keep it. When I work past that point, the likelihood of having an overworked image is great. 

Though I know the world can be unforgiving and even brutal, I continue to see beauty, often in the most unremarkable and ordinary of places. When you look at my flowers and interiors in January, birds and blooms in May, reflections of my studio and hot bright roofs in August, and the somber light of fall and end of season blooms, I hope you catch a glimpse of the world I love.