Artist's Statement

ARTIST STATEMENT 

Look in my back pocket and you'll find a small sketchbook most of the time I'm outdoors. I tend to seek out the rough ground. It can be just past the pavement in an urban park, or far down a wilderness trail. Raised to be an outdoors-woman, I feel at home up a mountain, on the sea, or in the desert. I choose my natural subjects because they delight, sooth, or awe me and put the workaday human humdrum into perspective. And no matter where I open my sketchbook or set up my easel, I'm having a good time.

 During my youth as an Army "brat," and a 35-year career as a broadcast and newspaper journalist, I've called Germany, Puerto Rico, Alaska, the Rocky Mountains and the East and West coasts my homes. Since I believe life is to be grasped as well as observed,  I remain an avid hiker, and fisher, and I captain a racing sailboat. I think this first-hand experience aids my art.  Drawing and painting has always been my way of commemorating the singular instants of beauty I've found  "out there." Now settled in Santa Barbara as a full-time painter, I seek to bring my patrons a bit of the delight and wonder that comes with, say, feeling the vibration of ocean waves smashing a cliff, or hearing the whoosh of wild goose wings just overhead. It is a challenge I immensely enjoy.

Using realistic colors and naturalistic compositions in oil and pastel, I begin most of my outdoor paintings on site. My studio work also includes still lifes, as well as portraits of people and "portraits" of boats. I've been strongly influenced by the California Impressionists and Tonalists of the 19th and early 20th centuries so I especially strive for quality and mood of light.