ARTIST STATEMENT

At this time my paintings are mostly landscapes. In these I try to remain open, to see what happens, to see where the painting leads me - from the first intention and plan to being available to what it suggests. These paintings are done for myself and for others, to share the place of "sanctuary". In this rushed world that seems evermore filled with darkness, stress and a diminishing human caring, I paint to find that place of peace, that sanctuary, where I, and those who see the painting can go within and be reminded that such a place does exist. I feel an invitation to carefully observe and to be able to run my hand over what God has created. The painting becomes a form of prayer.

In college I majored in fine arts, and filled my head with art history and painting theories while searching for my own identity as a painter. After college I found a way for an additional year of art training at L'Ecole des Beaux Art in Besancon, France. This was indeed an academic setting stressing draftsmanship and patience of execution. We would have to tear up and start over on a work that we might have spent hours producing, in order to achieve a much more satisfactory result. This academy was at the opposite end of my training in the US, which was so free spirited.

My studies in France were also a long awaited return, as I had lived in Provence for two years as a child. Beginning from that time, those wonderful long vistas of almond trees in bloom and lavender and the scents of herbs blown in on the wind created and everlasting impression on my psyche.

There have been so many artists who have influenced me along the way and I don't paint in the obvious style of any of them but they are there like ingredients of a complex recipe that owes it allegiance not to one single ingredient. These influences all intermingle and form my own "dance" which is the painting. I am especially drawn into an artist's work by their sense of courage and their apparent ability to take risks.