Reflections on Current Work

My art career began in glass. Although I have a minor in art,  I consider myself an outsider. Stained glass was an early expression for me and my love of color and line can be seen in my paintings. I taught art and English at Temecula Valley High School but I began painting in oils before my teaching. 

Today,  I show in San Diego, North County and through Oceanside Museum of Art as well as Fallbrook. 

My inspiration comes from nature but also the unusual buildings or abandoned vehicles which give the viewer a sense of alienation.

Rather than create a painting for the viewer to see, I strive to create a painting to walk into, one in which a viewer may sit and smell the loam or the silt of a lakeshore or hear the sounds of a city street. 

For the last few years, I have painted on prepared canvases using paper applied to raw canvas. Ridges and line are random and take oil paint and oil stick in interesting ways.  My work does not have a slick or polished look, rather, like nature, it’s rough and real. 

My husband and I backpack and hike and spend time in alpine lakes and Lodgepole forests. My painting reflects not only the beauty of the Sierra Nevada but the tangled branch and forest floor we lay our own limbs to sleep. The muscular peaks and ancient lakes in my paintings are bigger than us and I hope that is the strength other’s experience. 

As I grow older I want to become closer to nature. Painting for me captures and holds what I hold dear. What all humans should hold dear. What I hope we can save.  Hopefully, my colors and line and texture draws the viewer in as the forest draws me.