Color is inspiring. Whether it is a landscape, a flower, or a still life, I seek to explore and play with the relationships and combinations of color within the blueprint of the form. I gather imagery from places I love, whether Nantucket, Maine or Ireland, and seek to express a real sense of being in that space and the feeling it engenders within through the medium of paint, and usually oils. A particular flower or an object might serve as another exercise in playing with color and form. I prefer working on a smooth surface and find that wood or board gives a painting a body of its own.
While I majored in Studio Art and English at Wesleyan, I had worked primarily in drawing and printmaking. The making of art and things has always been central for me, in my work as a teacher, and in the island school I co-founded, Nantucket Lighthouse School. Working with one’s hands, figuring it out as you go and, like Rumpelstiltskin, making something from ‘nothing’ seem to be both a fundamental human task and a meaningful exercise for all. I find the process of focused seeing to be a meditative one at its best and a worthy challenge always.
