ARTIST STATEMENT

"I find inspiration for a painting when a certain subject, place, light and feeling perfectly converge in a given moment and move me emotionally.  When I have an overwhelming response to such a moment, I seize the feeling of it in my mind and, more importantly, in my heart.

My art is an intimate expression of my personal vision of the world around me… reality subjected to my own creative interpretation, simplification, and beautification.

I sometimes paint on location, but more often I paint in my studio, working from notes, sketches, photographs and memories. In any case, I paint in solitude, working to capture the spirit of my subject. At some point, I turn away from visual 'facts' and paint solely from feeling. With creative selectiveness, I heighten, sublimate, sharpen, blur, simplify or eliminate, yielding reality to my memories and imagination to convey to others the emotional response that first inspired me.

Before beginning a painting, I spend a considerable amount of time clarifying my vision of the finished piece, based on my core idea, my response to that one chosen moment. This vision drives all of my artistic decisions: painting size, compositional structure, internal scale, values, colors and technique.

My favorite paintings place elements of nature, such as trees, flowers and landscape, in counterpoint to those that are man-made: a window, doorway or balcony; a garden wall or fence; breeze-blown laundry on a line; a hastily abandoned table or chair. These commonplace elements are the marks that people leave on the natural world— manifestations of human presence, experience and interaction. They are honest expressions of living that show the touch of the human hand and spirit. I see them as small glimpses into the ongoing stories of others’ lives and their connections with my own; in my paintings, I use them to tell a story that goes beyond the limits of the scene itself.

I am especially drawn to the strong contrasts between light and shadow that are created by radiant sunlight. Light plays an important role in my storytelling.

Watercolor, with its immediacy, fluidity and luminosity, affords me the clearest expression of my personal vision. I adhere to pure transparency, using no white, black or additional medium in my paint.

My process is subtractive, like a sculptor working a block of marble. With the marks that my brushes and paint make, I 'carve out' the shapes that will be left behind, progressively chipping away at the surface.

Within those shapes, I apply various techniques, as appropriate to their contributions to the whole of the painting. Working wet-in-wet allows me to co-mingle pure pigments in a form of vivid optical mixing; applying wet-on-dry washes yields transparent layers of color glazing; dry-brush adds textural definition. Each does its part to unify the piece and bring my vision to life.

The visual stimulation of frequent travel abroad and the peaceful landscapes near my home and studio provide ongoing inspiration for my paintings.”