I am a multifaceted artist inspired by the unseen consciousness of life and the physics, biology, geology, food, emotions, and feelings that come to the surface. Like the tides of life and sea, my art comes to me in waves. I am held captive by the flow of energy. colors, words, and inspiration provided by a source that is undoubtedly outside myself and in me at the same time. I have worked to refine this channel of creativity and ensure my output best captures the vast feelings and beautiful expressions of life and of nature. This is a constant and never-ending exploration. I hold a B.A from Williams College in Geoscience and Maritime Studies and an M.A from Boston University in Gastronomy.
At home in Nahant, Massachusetts.
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As a young child at a small public school in rural Vermont, I learned that color could make people feel. Mrs. Hildebrand, the school’s gym teacher, asked me for permission to borrow a 2-by-3-foot painting of a thickly striped vertical rainbow I had painted in my kindergarten art room (I had taken some artistic liberty: the red in the rainbow was replaced by a joyful watermelon pink, my favorite color.) The painting, Mrs. Hildebrand told me, made her happy, and she wanted my permission to hang it outside her office where others could see it. I remember feeling immense gratification at her having asked me.
At age twelve, I found an abandoned block of 100% Cotton Arches Cold Press paper at my Grandfather’s 17th-century Cape Cod farmhouse. It appeared without reason, alongside a 12-color watercolor palette and a pair of wooden brushes. To this day, how the art supplies reached me is a mystery. Devoid of a teacher, I experimented with various ways I could apply layers of pigment and color to create dramatic expressions that pleased my soul’s eye.
Nurtured by the dozens of artist books my mother had thrifted, I took a serious yet playful approach to painting. Color and water became an avenue of discovery and exploration for my soul. I had no interest in defined forms, sketches, or usual ways of doing things. I preferred adaptations of reality using my own intuitive impulses as a guide.
As a young adult, my art became a secondary practice to my other intellectual pursuits. My supplies were tucked away under my dorm bed to use if I needed sensory relief from geology or sociology courses. In this time, I nurtured other passions, including cooking, gardening and wild food gathering which would all later inform my work with botanical inks and homemade earth pigments. It would be in my late twenties when I returned to painting with a clear focus and determination to share my work with the larger world.