My best memories of being a child are my times spent creating miniature worlds of seed pod boats floating in streams, and intricate rock villages in gardens. Before I learned to read or write I was painting trees in summer art classes taught by my great aunt. Lake Washington and the Salish Sea defined the experiences of my childhood. I grew up on an island, now I live on an island; these places are the foundation of my artistic relationship with water, trees, and nature.
My aspiration to live my life as an artist was nurtured when, at age eighteen, I lived for a year in Southern France studying painting at the Leo Marchutz School of Painting and Drawing. There I learned the art of drawing the figure, still life, plein air landscape; the study of the Masters, discussion, and critique. To do this all day everyday was challenging and transformational. As I lived, traveled and learned among the museums of Europe I experienced, over and over, the power of one person to touch many others with a single image.
After graduating from the University of Washington I was awarded a winter scholarship to the Banff Center for Arts and Creativity, where I learned to describe and defend my creative choices. I began to understand creativity was basic to my nature, reinforced when I lived for a year in a traditional tea house in Kyoto and studied with a Japanese Living Master of Calligraphy. There I taught myself to integrate the gesture of the sumie brush into a new expression of interpreting the exquisite gardens around me and the costumed figures of Kabuki theater.
I returned to the University of Washington to earn an MFA. For my thesis I designed costumes for the surrealist opera Julietta by Bohuslav Martinu at Meany Theater. Here I experienced the energy and excitement of collaborative creations. During the following years my artwork was influenced by travel to other countries and cultures, including Indonesia, Thailand, West Africa and Mexico. A workshop at Pilchuck Glass School, and painting and printmaking workshops in Greece and Italy, also expanded my skills and perspectives. An Artist Residency in Venice was also very influential.
My teaching experiences include a wide variety of student populations and creative subjects; from figure and portraiture drawing at Bellevue and North Seattle Community Colleges, to printmaking and watercolor journal at Pratt Fine Arts. I taught Mixed Media classes at Sitka Fine Arts Camp and Understanding Abstraction workshops at the Seattle Art Museum to a diverse group of students. I have led private workshops in The Art of Seeing, Abstracting the Image, and Nurturing Creativity.
I’ve worked with all ages as a Washington State Artist-in-Residence, and with Seniors Making Art. Teaching has given me great insight into — and appreciation for — the power of visual symbols and the creative process. As an artist and a teacher, I hope to engage people’s imagination, arouse their innate ability to find meaning and kindle a desire to connect with Nature’s inherent beauty.
Over decades of drawing and painting from life — from the stark beauty of Greek islands to the lush gardens of Thailand, and the architectural intricacies of Venice reflected in its canals — I have found that composing the visual world around me is like drinking water. The challenge of transforming these images in my studio is re-finding the source with a divining rod. Working on location in Mexico or Peru sated my thirst but delving into that source again, on a rainy day in my studio, strengthens my ability to trust the wild and expressive process of applying paint to canvas.
I’ve lived and played and created in my studio between forest and sea on Whidbey Island for almost a decade. As an artist I am thrilled and invigorated to be surrounded by the wildness of Nature every day. This immersion greatly influences my process and my imagery; endlessly inspiring and nurturing me.
My studio practice — my dance with the image — is seeking play, balance, surprise, harmony and discovery. There is struggle on this path of finding order in chaos; but there is also elegance, mystery and transformation.
I have exhibited my work for over thirty years and am currently represented by Museo Gallery on Whidbey Island.
