Fusion Leaves, pastel
I received a BFA from Massachusetts College of Art. I left Boston and moved to Maine 20 years ago, fulfilling my desire to be closer to nature. It was also a move to acknowledge my art in a more serious way, and I began exhibiting shortly after arriving.
Before moving to Maine, I would visit, and each time I would make a bee-line for the ocean, and try to capture the fluid movement of water with pastel. Once living here, I gradually moved on to the trees and the woods, sometimes catching a glimpse of the water through them, but, they became the focus, their still life, the expression of their branches seems to stir the air around them. A painter who has inspired me in this same sense and reverence is the west Canadian painter Emily Carr.
Trees and then their smaller versions in plants and the luscious color of certain flowers is still a focus for me, but a growing earnestness is there to do work that is more symbolic. My work is more sculptural, and working in three dimensions is another voice, a way to explore symbolic imagery.