Me on Me

As this painting began to resolve, it brought to mind fall walks in the meadow behind our house. With the early sunset painting the sky in fiery tones and the foreground passing into the violet of evening, the fallow meadow with its stalks of drying grass speaks to me of comfort and security, even serenity, in the face of the coming winter.

Fall Meadow, 24x30", 2025

Ocean Life evolved through several iterations. Each arose, and seemed lacking in some way. I persevered, confident that if I kept working, the work would eventually become resolved. I was also confident that each layer added interest as the history of the piece was laid down, covered, and then revealed in bits and pieces and glimpses in later stages. When the image finally came together, it fell into place with ease and began to speak to me of the teeming life hidden just beneath the mirrored surface of water.

Ocean Life, 24x30", 2025

Dancing burst forth while I was processing a dear friend's breast cancer diagnosis. She and I privately named it Dancing in Defiance of the Beast. Reluctant at the time to share fully the emotion and fear of those stark moments, I shortened the name when it made its debut into the world.

Dancing, 15x22" 2025 (Sold)

Symphony, 16x20", 2025 (Sold).

As I completed Dancing I was settling into a new medium, a medium that felt like arriving home after a long absence. Symphony was my first full scale, successful oil and cold wax painting. It's now in the collection of one of my staunchest supporters. It pleases me immensely to know that she enjoys it daily.

Make a Love New, 24x30", 2025.

While working on the painting that became, Make a Love New, I read the poem, Homestead, by Justin Carter. The title is a line from the poem. A line that captured my imagination and became my mantra during the hours in the studio finishing the painting. What a world we might make if we turned our attention to making love new - vibrant and at the forefront - across all our connections - personal, familial, and societal!

Birth of My Star, 24x30", 2025 (Sold)

Birth of My Star refers to a moment in time, a moment when something that had long confounded me slipped into place and became clear; the moment when I gained clarity and confidence in my own unique creative voice. In the end, what I had labored over was simple. I only have to lean into what makes my heart sing and my unique voice emerges naturally. Finding my voice is not an intellectual pursuit, it’s a letting go. And in the letting go, in the choosing, fiercely and without fail, what has meaning for me, my star shines forth.

Rosetta Stone, 24x30", 2025.

There are many layers in this work, and many of the layers have writing of some form - writing that is not meant to be read straight forwardly. As the layers developed, I began to think of the work as a sort of Rosetta Stone. If one could decipher the layers, meanings would emerge and be clarified. I would be interpreted and become known. The title is perhaps a misnomer, however. These writings are destined to be a mystery forever, arising as they do from some primal, non-verbal core of my being. One may glimpse a meaning, but it remains just beyond the grasp.

Heading Towards Eternity, 20x24", 2025.

Heading Towards Eternity is inspired by the song, The Pearl, by Emmylou Harris. I can listen to the song repeatedly without tiring of it, and I do. It lifts and inspires me on a deeply intuitive level. It soars and I soar with it. The lyrics echoed in my mind as I completed this piece. I wanted to depict the journey we all ultimately take boldly and energetically, as a positive movement towards complete release and true freedom.

While the color red can have many connotations, for me it is kinetic, the color of joy and communion.

Sedimentary, 24x30", 2025.

There is a quote from Lao Tzu regarding having the patience to wait for the mud to settle and the water to clear. At 72, I've had plenty of opportunity to practice that patience. Age carries blessings, however. It becomes easier to find grace amidst the turmoil of the mud and the water runs clear, sparkling with the dappled colors of reflected sunlight. My sediments settle into the pattern of a life lived.

Upward, 16x20", 2025.

Upward is a bit of an anomaly. As I worked on it, a landscape emerged unbidden. Once it was there, it seemed to assert itself and I felt I had to embrace it. It drew me in and spoke to me. All the academic voices in the back of my mind chided me - the piece did not fit into any coherent theme or series in my work. I decided that I did not care two figs about that. Perhaps one day it will become clear to me why this image arose and what it is quietly whispering.

I once read that artists fall into two camps, those that act as mirrors and those that act as windows (John Szarkowski, Mirrors and Windows : American Photography since 1960). Am I a mirror reflecting a portrait of the artist who made the work, or a window, through which one might better know the world? I am decidedly a mirror. My work is intuitive, it is a striving to find the essence, to say the nonverbal, to plumb myself. My works are excavations of my being. As you view them, it is my hope that you find a powerful connection to your own truth in them.

Having browsed my work, you may be curious to know my personal story. I was not always an artist. In fact, my journey to becoming the artist I am today was a long, and sometimes painful one. You can read about the arc of my life here. You can learn more about the twists and turns of my creative journey here.