About the artist

I’m a painter working in oil, cold wax, and mixed media. I focus on uniting the physical possibilities of my media with the visual, emotional, and intellectual stimuli that spark me: plants in the gardens and forests of the Pacific Northwest; the interactions of air, water, and earth; the foundational role of women and their work; how human-made environments hold both beauty and desolation.

 

My work often contains botanical images with an edge. I’m a gardener, acutely aware that climate change is affecting the health of the plants I steward. Increasingly hot summers bring invasive insects and stress the native bees. My garden yields food and beauty, but also affords a microcosmic view of a greater impending calamity. This unease finds its way into my paintings, drawings, and collages. 

 

My work is abstract and process-oriented; I don’t always know where it’s taking me as I go. I’m always intrigued when I wind up working within a composition that contains both natural and built motifs.

 

I live in a built-up, altered suburban city, on Native land whose salmon-traveled river has been leveed into capitulation. I spent ten years living in larger cities–New York and Seattle, respectively–and continue to seek out the art and energy of urban environments. I like to bring the banality of suburbia, the vibrant potential of cities, and nature’s cameo appearances  together in my work.

 

My 32-year career as a librarian was bracketed by two generative periods of art study and practice: a foundation year at School of Visual Arts (NYC, 1975-76) and my return to painting in 2018. My daily practice propels my exploration, and I love sharing my work with the world.

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View my current CV here.

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