Artist Reception: Saturday, March 4th, 2 - 4 pm
"... My work is small in scale - petite and intense - more emotional than cerebral. Compositions as melodies ... as stories. Working privately and intimately, beginning initially with drawing, describing something or someplace by suggestion ... form that feels most natural to me remains more like chamber music than a symphony, and more like a poem than a novel - intricate, quiet, intense and concise ..."
My work generally is an extended interpretive response to my surroundings. I use various media – especially drawing, watercolor or acrylic – sometimes in combination – to address the Northwest landscape. I respond to the dramatic spaces created by the interactions of plants, topography and water. I often make drawings outdoors and on site. These experiences continue to inform the feeling behind my work. I develop my paintings from the drawings afterwards. Using both approaches, the Willamette Valley and the Pacific coast have offered me favorite and enduring subject matter. I listen to this landscape for its own tales to tell. Compositions are stories. For example, trees gather on the border of a field, appear as though engaged in an animated discussion regarding their long-held position as stewards of the meadow. An forest’s determined pattern may be expressed through line and shape, charcoal and paint; a choir of color emerging.