I live with my husband and two daughters on an expansive hilltop farm in Southern Vermont—also 15 hens, 2 horses, multiple cats and 2 dogs who also show up in my art (especially my expressive Morgan horse named River). I am fortunate to have two art spaces there. A crowded winter painting studio in my home and a larger airy space for spreading out in the summer where I also make ceramic pots and sculpture. 

 In my formative years I spent many hours drawing—mostly horses :) but didn’t have a chance to paint except occasionally the odd watery pale watercolor. At 10, encouraged by my father, I thought I might have a career drawing horse portraits! At 82, and after many moves and downsizing, my mother still hangs a sleeping blue cat in faded watercolor on her few remaining walls.

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 In a required college art course a teacher introduced me to a style of painting with color and abstract marks that I would now call Abstract Expressionism. The feeling of exhilaration I experienced in that process of exploring freely with tempera paint— even on cheap buckling newsprint—remains with me to this day and became my inspiration in 2010 when I committed to organizing my own art education. Since then I have independently studied art history as well as art process and technique.

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 I have felt especially compelled by the art of the late 19th century, early and mid 20th century figurative and pure abstract expressionist painters: Milton Avery, Kathe Kollowitz, Egon Schille,Franz Marc, Marc Chagall, Paula Moderson-Becker, Helen Schjerfbeck, Franz Kline, Robert Motherwell, Richard Diebenkorn, Amedeo Modigliani, and of course Matisse and Picasso to name a few plus some contemporary artists especially Olivia Pendergast and Melinda Cootsona. I have had many local and online teachers in numerous classes including: paint mixing, figure drawing, portraiture and techniques of painting as well as abstract composition and exploration of design principles.

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 My approach to art is experimental on the one hand and on the other driven by a desire to draw well, if loosely and on my own terms, and to create compelling compositions either calligraphic or in multiple layers to convey through color, line and form, a sense of history, of movement and  emotional connection. 

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  I work in acrylic paint with mixed media and collage elements on a variety of surfaces: canvas, wood, and paper. Cold wax medium and oil have also come into my repertoire of media. With so many materials in the world to choose from there is no end to the possibilities—and I don’t intend to limit myself :) 

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