ARTIST STATEMENT

A flutter in my belly pulls me into my studio. I sense how quickly time passes and how precious our lives are, and I begin. I pull my brush through the paint piled on my palette. Holding the brush loosely, I stroke large swaths of purple onto a bright orange canvas, working toward rich, warm shadows. Soon the painting unfurls itself in layers of color and contrast – form, light and space become a landscape carved from the passage of time.

Ideas come to me from our common well of human needs and experiences: how we relate to time, to change, and to mortality. As I paint, I strive to paint the messages within nature’s beauty and power. I also create artwork as a way to be visible – as a way to connect and share meaning and beauty with people who, like myself, thrive on stories that lie beyond the surface of things.

Painting fulfills my desire to create a connection with people through the vehicle of artwork, a purpose born from a sense of inner solitude. For me, creating artwork also softens the sense of life’s brevity, a feeling accentuated by growing up with a sibling with life-threatening health issues.

Walking with my husband and dogs in the West Kootenay outdoors, I see stories in the surrounding landscape. I see lightning strike a tree and I think about how a forest needs fire to flourish, just as we need hardship to become our best beings. In my imagination I see a tree, struck by lightning, transforming into birds. With this image in my heart and mind’s eye, I feel a flutter in my belly. I return to my studio and begin again to paint.