Artist's Statement

When I started painting 40 years ago, my style was flat and hard edge. Like the coloring books I enjoyed as a child, I liked painting still lifes and landscapes with oils in solid colors with black outlines.

Early in my career, I was living in Massachusetts, and I was attracted to the character I saw in the New England architecture. I painted homes and buildings in Cambridge, Boston, and the surrounding area, all in my coloring book style. The paintings are somewhat surrealistic in that time appears to have stopped, and the scenes exist in a vacuum. I actually loved bringing images down to color and lines, but I was not aware at the time that my dissatisfaction with the harsh climate was also being expressed.

When I moved to Florida in the early 80's, I stopped painting. The lush vegetation and the hot climate did not match my style or the mood of my work, which some compared to Hopper. So, for over 15 years I did not paint and focused on my career as a licensed mental health counselor. I owned a psychotherapy private practice for 16 years, but in the summer of 2001 I found myself seeing paintings in my mind's eye everywhere.

I took out my easel and painted my parakeet in a hibiscus tree. This small painting began my new style and career. For three years I continued to practice psychotherapy and to paint in most of my spare time, often starting my day at 7:00 am and painting until 2 am. I joined Women in the Visual Arts as a juried artist member in 2002 and began exhibiting and selling my work. Then, in the fall of 2004 after going through two hurricanes, I decided to close my practice and pursue my passion fulltime.

I take lots of photographs constantly wherever I go, and later I use my photos as inspiration for the paintings. Beyond buildings it's now the rich flora which attracts me, and my brush has become freer and more impressionistic. I no longer have to paint within the lines. With age has come daring and a willingness to let the unconscious be expressed on the canvas. Now I can express joy in the beauty I see around me as well as share my experience of the places I visit.

All of my paintings are oils on canvas. Most are 20 x 24, but I also enjoy doing miniatures, and some of the landscapes have required large canvases.