Artists

As an artist, I’ve devoted my life to the practice of drawing and painting. My personal pursuit of happiness has actually been the pursuit of beauty. It took me a while to realize it, but it’s what I’ve been designed to do. The time I feel the most alive is when I’m creating. It’s when I feel most connected to my inner being.

As a visual artist, I can’t help but notice small everyday things that others miss. I recognize and appreciate beauty in these overlooked gems. I often try to include them in my work, and strive to give the viewer glimpses of the word as I see it. I encourage people to slow down a little and enjoy our world. It’s something that needs to be expressed and shared. It brings me joy as I attempt to elevate the mundane and ordinary to the extraordinary so that others are able to see the world as an artist does. This sharing is everything to me.

My favorite subjects for paintings and drawings are from nature. I work both from life, and from photos. My two favorite mediums right now are acrylic, for its speed and ease of application (instant gratification!), and hand embroidery for the calm and meditative motion of the stitches, boldness of colors, wonderful texture. I love the way I can take it everywhere I go. From a rough sketch, to a finished tapestry that literally develops and changes over time, it is truly a “process based” rather than “product based” medium.

My other favorite activity is anything to do with working the soil and planting a garden. When speaking of a garden in his book “The View from the Studio Door, Ted Orland writes, “Gardens create content-meaning-by using physical space to define an aesthetic, emotional and social relationship with the land.” I take it a step further and declare that to create a garden is a spiritual experience.  Making art is the same for me. As Orland puts it, “The common ground shared by artists who make continuing progress in their work is that they have committed themselves to working on the things that really matter to them.”  I couldn’t agree more.