"I’m looking for an image. There are so many and I can’t decide on a vehicle. Keep in mind the entire world (cosmos, mental reality, actual and otherwise) is mine to select from. And I remember Walt Whitman’s advice to animalize, vegetable-ize and mineralize it, even Eavan Boland’s urgings to express and not be afraid of my womanly self in all its ordinariness. And then there’s Philip Levine’s emphasis on compassion for the average guy."           

These still life works use photographs, taken, developed and printed by me in the dark room then digitized and printed on canvas. Then I use oil paint with great restraint to augment the images.    

"Change can be so gradual or it can be ruthlessly sudden. The unlocking winter is like me: hope is manifest big-time, optimism is my middle name. It’s in the design of our mother’s gardens. I am part of this world, natural landscapes and manufactured accents (bridges, pyramids, cities). And world, I am here to tell you about it, part in joy and part in misery. We all need poetry, not just the select."

These landscape works use photographs, taken by me, some film, some digital, manipulated and printed on canvas. Several pieces start out as 2 images printed together on the same canvas then merged with oil paint into one.       

"What remains when there’s no grasping is the self. Paradox is a symptom saying logic – our intellectual part – has reached its limit. Relationships are powerful agents of change. The most supreme security comes from giving, unasked and asking zero in return. There is no return, no reward. No expectation of an exchange."

Many, many projects through the years have come my way. The challenges and joys of team work has produced my life and it is with great gratitude I thank all my benefactors, especially Kippy Stroud.  

"How can you match the sacred innocence of a rabbit. The mercy of the raindrop, the soft forgiveness of fur all bringing back childhood with unaided economy - - no words necessary. Just drifting wind across the rising field."

Bags are among early tools of human beings, cartable works of art and showcases of cleaver industry. Try to resist a well designed bag.

"Happiness, from now on, isn’t going to come from producing anything. Only being alive all day. I’m going to move from words, and for awhile embrace color and form and texture and temperature, taste and fragrance before I move back to mentally and intellectually constructed verbals."

Studio, kitchen, living room, office. Interiors matter to our wellbeing. I am a firm advocate of surrounding ourselves with beauty.

“Humanity is conversation. Sacredness is connection. Like a sculptor who puts together an emotion, visual representation and conveys this through a physical medium. Same thing. No mystery except in walking up to and greeting the personal interpretation inside your own mind. And if my femininity and age don’t meet your standards, try to see me as I do; as a rice field. Hot and sunbaked in the summer filled with lush growth. Other times I seem eroded and down in the mouth a little, waiting for a plow to ruffle my earth.”

A little comfort, color and pattern to delight the eye is my idea of luxury.