When I was about 4 years old, living in Ohio, my mother gave me a cleverly designed pencil box. A transparent yellow ruler served as the box’s removable lid. Once removed and held to my eyes, the ruler revealed a sunny glow to an otherwise overcast world. Painting is my magic ruler although I like to use more than just yellow nowadays.
I have read that the act of painting engages both hemispheres of the brain, which helps to explain its absorbing nature. In 2001, I resumed painting after a twenty-five year hiatus in response to a difficult personal time. I was looking for a tool to redirect my thinking and offer a venue for personal expression. What I found did answer my personal needs, but I seemed to rediscover the magic ruler as well.
So far, I’ve received little formal training as an artist—one art class in high school and a studio art class in acrylic painting at the University of New Mexico. But in childhood, I spent countless hours making dioramas, producing house plans and other designs, and observing nature. I liked to draw figures, interiors, and landscapes. These were the solitary, and as it turns out, lasting pleasures of an only child.
A group of photos I took during a series of camping trips to the Southwest—a place to which I have a special emotional and sensory attachment—served as my initial inspiration when I resumed painting. I began with the familiar medium
of acrylics and took up oils in 2006. Camping trips allow me to engage in an intimate relationship to the lands I’m on. At home, I spend a good part of my days working outside and like to sleep outdoors to retain the connection with what is around me. I keep a journal of plants and wildlife observed and try to learn more about the natural and cultural history of the places I see.
Susceptible to falling in love with places I’ve lived and visited, my motivation to paint is the emotional resonance I experience—sometimes exhilarating, sometimes bittersweet—with certain landscapes and which I want to convey to the viewer. These encounters seem to open an inner view as well as represent specific locations. My favorite times painting are those when, inexplicably, I have the sensation that I have re-entered the place I am painting; sometimes feeling as small
as a mouse or that I am perched directly in front of a mountain. I am captivated by color and in pursuing a realistic representation of light and in honoring my subject. While much of what I paint is representational of specific places, I like the unknown arriving upon each brushstroke. The ensuing creation, no matter how it was imagined, is unexpected in some fundamental aspect—a reminder that each moment is new and unknown.
Landscapes and personal narrative imagery are currently common subjects for my painting. Other streams of images are beginning to form and I hope to follow them along and see where I find myself.
I began showing my work in 2006 in group and solo shows.
I grew up in southwestern Ohio and have lived in Kentucky and New Mexico besides having the good fortune to be in Vermont for 30 years. I work as a landscape gardener and natural areas practitioner in addition to painting.
Recent Exhibits and Projects:
2006
- April: Lebanon Co-op Café, Lebanon, NH
- May: Visions of Cardigan Mountain, Cardigan Mountain Art Gallery opening, Canaan, NH
- July: Participation in six-member show Cardigan Mountain Art Gallery
- August: Desert illumination: Landscape of Scattered Light, Amidon Jewelers, Hanover, NH *
- November: 2nd Annual Holiday Show, Cardigan Mountain Art Gallery
- December: Holiday Show and Sale, River Valley Club, Lebanon, NH
2007
- January: River Valley Club *
- November: Lebanon Co-op Café *
- Throughout year: Cardigan Mountain Art Gallery
2008
- July-August: Title TBA, Norwich Public Library, Norwich, VT *
* indicates solo exhibit