“Most of the change we think we see in life is due to truths being in and out of favor.”

 

 When I substitute the word “art” for “life” in the above quote from Robert Frost, it helps me stay focused on my journey to find my voice as an artist; what do I have to say and how do I want to say it? Whatever changes my life and my art undergo along the way, I’d like to be thought of as an artist who searches for the underlying principles of art and who grows in the understanding and application of those principles. Above all, I’m grateful for whatever innate or acquired ability I may have to express my reverence for the truth, beauty, in nature and the human experience.

 

History and Training:

 

I have always been an artist, but I was not encouraged when young to study art. I am grateful for the life and experiences I've had with my husband and two daughters, now married, for my health and for the opportunities that are constantly unfolding to me.

In 1992 I embarked on a journey of self-study in fine art, comprised of nearly every available college course in drawing, painting, portraiture, figural study, and graphic arts, augmented with continuing study with many modern masters, such as Gil Dellinger, Ray Roberts, Brian Blood, Susan Sarback, Camille Przwodek, Everett Jensen, Frank Ordaz, Don Hatfield, and Barry John Raybould’s Virtual Academy. My main interest is in design, and I ‘m constantly immersed in something from my large library of books and materials on composition, technique and art history. My silent mentors from the past include Constable, Rembrandt, Sargent, Sorolla, Velazquez, Hals and Arthur Mathews.

 

My subject of choice has long been the landscape, especially plein air painting, but I now find myself returning to the study of portraiture, which has its roots in my earliest memories and continued throughout my childhood. Happy to be a perennial art student as well as a professional artist, I attend weekly figure painting sessions, in addition to an occasional workshop in landscape painting and portraiture. My paintings are in many private collections throughout the United States and in the United Kingdom. I enjoy participating jn  several juried plein air competitions through out the year, and my work has been juried into many prestigious national and statewide exhibits.