I consider the visual arts as one of life’s essential elements.  My soul is moved by great pieces of art.  I am a “visual” person”; perpetually driven to create.  Historically rooted in the arts, the profession of architecture attracted me as a young adult, and thus I practiced it for 42 years of my life, retiring in 2015.  Architecture provided me with the “venue” to create…to manipulate shapes, colors and light to hopefully invoke an emotion.  While still working FT as an architect, I felt the need to become even more involved in the arts.  In 1999 I was offered a position as a Board member on a local City Arts Council.  I accepted and served for 14 years, 11 of those as the Chairperson.

In 2007, as part of the promotion for an upcoming Juried Art Show I created a “sketch” of a City landmark.  I chose to paint the landmark using pastels after researching and studying the medium for years prior to that.  That “sketch” was accepted and became the impetus for the beginning of my aggressive, self-taught venture into pastel painting.  I chose pastel as a medium because of its vibrant, expressive colors and tactile application.  Over the years, I have sought out some of the preeminent pastel artists in the country with whom to study and continue to refine my skills.  Painting FT now has afforded me the opportunity to advance my work in pastels and expand my studies of art, in general.

Born and raised in suburbia and having worked in an urban environment for most of my architecture career, I often feel the urge to explore the unknown to me…the rural environment.  I am attracted to the simple and unadorned life of rural America.  I am drawn to remote, out of the way places for my inspiration.  My introverted tendencies are frequently satisfied by finding and painting that far away setting that otherwise would go unnoticed.  I take pleasure in painting the graceful shapes of a tree, the tranquility in a body of water, the expanse of a pasture or the imagined memories of an old farm building.

I presume in "respect" to my architectural roots, I find myself drawn back to the desire to “experiment” more with colors, shapes and light in my work.  I continuously contemplate my work co-existing in or between abstraction and representation.  I find real “freedom” in a less representational approach as I feel it gives me more permission to manipulate elements allowing the work to have a voice of its own.  I use my “Synthesis Series” pieces as a means for study, experimentation and possibly the genesis for a larger, similar piece.

Thank you for viewing my work.  Please feel free to contact me; I would enjoy hearing from you.  My hope is that my work will revive a lost memory, create a new one or simply give you reason to pause.