ROSES
Nature, gardens and flowers are important recurring themes in my artwork. Currently, the greatest source of inspiration for my art is my rose garden. In every place I have lived, I found space for a rose garden. I searched for the perfect roses, planning carefully for the future subject matter of my art. I plant in carefully prepared soil, nurture plants in anticipation of the first blooms of the season, pick them and paint or draw while observing the live flower. The flower images I create are magnified 10-20 fold, providing a bee’s-eye view, and elevating the importance of the flower to give it a significant presence of its own.
HAWAIIAN FLOWERS
From 1980 to 1986, I explored the tropical forests of Mexico, Central and South America on bird watching trips. Here I found extremely diverse species of birds, insects and plants and flowers. More recently I visited tropical gardens in Singapore, Taiwan and Hawaii. I created a library of thousands of photographs of flowers and foliage during these trips. These images are intermingled with fresh Hawaiian flowers (and sometimes tropical birds) into large scale paintings and pastel drawings. I often work on tropical flower paintings during cold winter months.
Other flowers
I grew up with the Olympic Rain Forest as my playground, with weekly family trips to a cabin on the Sol Duc River near the Pacific Ocean. For most of the past 30 years my husband and I lived and worked in California. In 2016, we took a step back to the Pacific Northwest, purchasing a second home on 26 acres of rain forest in the lovely Elochoman Valley near Cathlamet, Washington. We share the land with bear, cougar, deer, elk, eagles, herons, and bats. Owls hoot, coyotes howl and frogs sing by night. I am planning for a new rose garden and new studio. I anticipate really great paintings to come.