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"Painting from the Heart and Spirit"
My love of creating floral paintings using vibrant color is also a reflection of my early St. Louis childhood playing in a neighbor’s wild and bountiful garden and picking wild blackberries hanging from her weathered fence posts. As a young artist I was inspired by these images and set up my easel next to an old stove in my basement determined to capture those images on canvas. During the long winter nights I would melt candles and mix the wax with oil paints to create garden florals in my version of the Van Gogh tradition. I am still drawn to flowers and cacti because of my strong love of color, shape, and design. As an adult, I have been fortunate to photograph some of the worldís most beautiful gardens. These photographs and sketch notes serve as resources to create paintings rich in detail and color. There seems to be nothing more beautiful than multicolored blossoms playing against garden greens or a sun-drenched desert landscape. Explorations of floral shapes are exciting because they are abstract wonders. I feel flowers bring us back to nature, ground us, and put us back in balance. I am also a seventh generation
American and find strength in
my roots as well as motivation
for my paintings depicting the
drama of people, animals and
their relationship with the land.
I am inspired by stories of my
hardworking pioneer ancestors
who built a sawmill and a church
in Now, I am honored with invitations
to photograph and paint cattle
drives, roundups, and sacred
Native American ceremonies. Many
of my models are Native Americans,
ranchers, working cowboys and
cowgirls. I challenge myself
to paint traditional Western
subjects capturing uplifting
messages indicative of a vanishing
rural life as well as Native
American themes. |
When
I was four years old growing
up in St. Louis, my parents gave
me Christmas presents which foretold
my life as an artist. An old
ìSuper 8î movie shows me trying
to wriggle into a fringed Annie
Oakley outfit, digging my feet
into bright red cowboy boots,
and standing tall in front of
a wooden easel. Annie Oakley,
with her pigtails flying and
pistols blazing, was my heroine.
I spent hours dressed like Annie,
drawing and painting horses using
my collection of horse figurines
as models. Today, friends know
I am just a grown up version
of that girl. I still love to
wear my Western clothes and paint
Western subjects. 
Ohio
while clearing the land for a
farm. As a child I spent countless
hours in the summer riding a
Shetland pony, roaming the fields
and helping my grandmother in
the vegetable and flower gardens.
The church stands today and the
farm is still family owned. 