what artistic influences do we see in your work?
The coastal skies of the 17th century Dutch painter Ruisdael, and the marine paintings of the early American Luminist painters captivated me early on. They are so like the open coastal areas where I grew up. I love the hummingbird paintings of Martin Johnson Heade, Joseph Cornell's boxes and Remedios Varos' exquisite metaphors.

what led you to become an artist?
My family moved from Chicago to Miami Beach, in April 1967, when I was eight. It was a dramatic awakening: black and white to Kodachrome. I saw pink flamingoes, coral hibiscus, and clear aquamarine water. The tropical plants enchanted me and still do. But really, the desire was there from the start, with a longing for the largest possible box of crayons.

what keeps you painting?
It's not an easy path, being an artist.  There is uncertainty of every sort, the worst being the need to stay inspired and keep growing. I used to say I trusted my intuition, or that I held onto Keat's idea of Negative Capability.  After a close call with a possible career change, I realized that what I thought was faith in my own intuition was faith in a better source than I'd given myself credit for having.  Recently, I've begun to teach a continuing-ed painting class.  After twenty years of developing my skill, I thought I might be ready to share some of what I have learned.  It's a fine challenge to show a class of beginners how paint may be transformed into a representation of light. I find myself looking at everything differently.

where did you grow up?
Always in close proximity to a river or a large body of water: Lake Michigan, the Atlantic Ocean, the Magnolia River and Mobile Bay in Alabama.

and where do you live/work now?
After five years in New Orleans, Hurricane Katrina blew me back to Mobile, Alabama. We have glorious skies in Mobile; it is a calm place to live and work.

how did you develop the technical aspects of your work?
I was fortunate in finding a teacher, Jack Dempsey, a retired art professor who had worked restoring paintings in Italy. He could demonstrate and explain at the same time--truly a poet. Another teacher, Fred Lawyer, is a great draftsman. I learned to gild frames and prepare canvases out of a book. Working for art conservator Richard White allowed me the privilege of studying paintings from museums and fine private collections while I repaired areas of lost paint. 

how did you develop your individual style?
A good part of style is linked to working method: how to stroke the paint, the color of an imprimatura (or underpainting), how to choose subject matter. Subject matter: big skies, flora, and fauna no more than 100 miles from the studio. At some point, I realized that the idea of how small we are under the great vault of the sky had become a key idea in my work. I particularly like what Leonardo wrote about finding landscape forms in the water stains on a wall or in the patterns of clouds. A loaded camera and a sketchbook are close by at all times. You work year after year, and style happens.  The thing is to keep working. 

educational background
I studied design at Auburn University, dropped out to marry and become a mother, and nine years later earned a BFA in painting and printmaking at the University of South Alabama in 1987. Traveling around the U.S., Mexico and Europe, reading, studying nature, and looking at great art rounds out the formal studies.