artist’s statment

“Let the beauty we love be what we do.” -Rumi

I am a self-taught artist. I began painting after my children gave me a box of watercolors purchased in a toy store for Mother’s Day in l992—the same year I became divorced after an 18-year marriage. I have been painting full-time since March of 1994.

The stories I tell in my paintings have helped me to heal my heart. I have survived childhood abuse, divorce, and the deaths of my brothers. Through my art, I create and explore what is right in the world. It helps me to remember that while there is oft times terrible tragedy, there is always, existing simultaneously, a wonderful good. In encouraging myself, I hope I am encouraging others

I paint what I love, what I want to really “see” and come to understand. I seek in my paintings to find a greater uplifting truth and beauty than I can usually find in my daily life. I want to be reminded and to remind—life is very good, joy is in the small moments, beauty is in the imperfection at hand.

The common thread of my paintings is an exploration of daily life. The images and symbols I use are common to all our lives and represent, for me, both the home we live in and the one we carry inside. This subject also allows me a way to exercise and explore my traditional female energy in a non-traditional world, to heal from a difficult past, and to consider at a deeper level the challenges of life and that idea we call home.

I paint many commissions for families depicting them in their homes, on the beach, at the park, or wherever their special memories lie. Through these paintings I seek to create a lasting blessing–one that will remind the family, even on it’s most difficult day, that the first and foremost thing is always their love for each other.

My work hangs across the United States as well as in Germany, England, Mexico, Switzerland, Denmark, Korea, Hungary, New Zealand, Canada and the Virgin Islands. Every summer I make a pilgrimage to Maine for renewal and to paint.