Finding My Mojo Painting

I am a self-taught abstract expressionist painter. This is a fancy way of saying that I use paint to express the inexpressible. I am a California native who has owned and operated family-owned Italian restaurants in Venice Beach since 1992. An Ovarian cancer diagnosis in 2008 was the catalyst to my artistic journey. I used this difficult time between surgeries and chemotherapy treatments for introspection and growth. I would create colorful imagery with affirmative words digitally to visualize my healing from the inside out. I called these pieces I created “AffirmSHEart”. In 2013 I picked up a paintbrush and never looked back. Painting helped me to express feelings I could not find the words for. In 2018 I started participating in art shows and have been grateful for the positive response I have received. Sharing my artwork was not easy for me. I felt naked and vulnerable as though I was sharing a deep dark secret. I decided that perfection is a concept that has no place in my world. I embraced my childlike curiosity while parking my art critic at the curb. I seldom know ahead of time where a painting might take me, it is a meditative, intuitive process and many are happy accidents. I turn up the music, pick up my brush, sing and dance and let it rip. I peel away the layers inside myself as I place the layers onto my canvas. I work with acrylic paint, mixed media and all sorts of mark-making tools on gallery-wrapped canvas. You might see words peeking through from my earlier layers as I find my way one stroke at a time. I literally “work it out in the paint.” I hope that my paintings inspire others to look within and to open their mind and heart and feel something.