"Watchful Eye" Painting

I paint because I just don't know how not to. Art has been part of my life as far back as I can remember — ceramics classes as a kid, hours lost in coloring books and paint-by-numbers, and a high school drawing of a marina sailboat that made me think for the first time: maybe I could actually be an artist. Life took me down other roads first. I grew up in Slidell, Louisiana, earned a Ph.D. in psychology from Texas A&M, and built a career in educational and psychological testing that I've loved for thirty years. But the pull to create never went away. It just waited. Today I paint from two studios — one in Austin, Texas, and one newly opened at my home in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The Austin studio is a guest bedroom with a big window and good light, where I burn incense to get started and routinely forget to drink my coffee. Most mornings I look up and two hours have gone by. That's how I know it's working. Santa Fe is a newer chapter — and I can't wait to see what happens when I start painting those mountains and high desert landscapes I love so much. My subjects are birds and landscapes — the wild, beautiful, fragile things. The birds started showing up as small highlights in my landscape paintings before I even noticed. Once I did, I couldn't stop. I've kept birds as pets and known them up close, and that intimacy comes through, I think. I paint them not as specimens but as presences — creatures with color and mood and a way of holding themselves that deserves to be looked at. People tell me my paintings make them happy. That's the whole point. I want someone to walk past one of my pieces every single day and feel something good. I can't imagine a higher compliment. I'm a member of the American Bird Conservancy and the Audubon Society, and I contribute to conservation efforts regularly — because if we lose the wild places, we lose the things worth painting. We only get one planet. Thanks for being here. Beth