STATEMENT

I paint what I see - a natural world which is alive, breathes and shimmers, the grace in the bend of a branch, and hope in the migration and transformation of the human soul beside the water edge. 

I am a river rat - born and raised on the Ohio River. Rivers are my haven, always a home away from home, my familiar. So when my family relocated to northern California in 2018, my curiosity immediately took me to the American River. Soon after, I began a weekly pleinair practice on the banks of this river. Just me, a camp stool, a small bag of pencils, my daughter's grade school watercolors, and a sketchbook nestled beside my forested oasis.

The river connected the past to the present and there my spirit burned fiercely. Outside was bustling Sacramento, the state capital of California, a tangle of highways and byways. Inside, I freed my creative soul to express the surreal experience of nature, to draw upon the vitality of the river system, and to discover small manifestations of beauty.

As our world emerges from the recent pandemic, I'm shifting gears and taking on a new challenge - to create 100 small oil vignettes of my American River experience built from pleinair sketchbooks and journals, memories, and wanderings. This challenge asks me to step back, recommit to my creative process, listen and see with fresh eyes, lighten my step and my palette, heighten my colors, and paint landscapes that sing. I continue my search for motifs that peel away the layers of the river down to its mysterious force.