Land Escape Painting

I received my B.A. from East Carolina University, English Literature/Studio Art, with continued studies at School of the Museum of Fine Art and Massachusetts College of Art, Boston, and more recently with Stuart Shils, Jane Filer, Isaac Payne and Margie Stewart. As a graphic designer, I earned awards from Art Director’s Club Boston, Print Magazine Regional Annual and Bookbuilders of Boston. As a children’s book illustrator of 16 published titles, my work has appeared in a Society of Illustrators exhibit NYC, Adobe Illustrator WOW! books, received a Rutgers University Book of the Month award and was favorably reviewed in The NYTimes. I've worked as an adjunct instructor of illustration at Winthrop University and occaisional instructor at The Mint Museum, Charlotte NC. Now concentrating on mixed media painting/collage, I'm working from my home studio. As a former member of McRae Art Studios, Orlando FL, and St. Pete Art Center (now Morean Arts Center), St. Peterburg FL, I exhibited across the state, with works in private collections throughout the South, and recent installations in Yale New Haven Hospital, CT and corporate collections in Charlotte, NC. Travels to experience different cultures and view works in museums have certainly enriched the development of my own visual aesthetic: Italy, France, Austria, Ireland, Iceland, Mexico, and next, Barcelona. Statement: The paintings have evolved from traditional landscapes to “land escapes”, entering territory that is both familiar and non-specific, sometimes maintaining a horizon while increasingly playing with abstraction. Color interaction is at the heart of every piece, in which formal shapes and planes might be read as ruins scattered across plains...or not, reflecting the duality that we live in a world that is incredibly beautiful and increasingly uncertain. Questions are more interesting than answers. Most recently, an ongoing series of small mixed media collages ,"Color + Design", explores all the permutations and juxtapositions of palette, form, composition and content, dedicated to the spirit of creative joy!