"Where Iris Went" Painting

I grew up in an old farmhouse in rural Maine—a mostly-untouched, rural environment perfect for observing and exploring. On their property, my parents transformed an old chicken barn into an alternative-education school where I don't remember doing anything besides sledding, making paper valentines, listening to my teacher read stories, and climbing trees with her friends. As a teenager, I worked hard to be “normal,” but thankfully the happy little weirdo side persisted. At Bates College, I started a music major, but my piano teacher wisely suggested she might be happier in the visual art program since I never wanted to practice. I fell in love with abstract painting during a semester abroad at Tyler School of Art in Rome. Years later, I left a graphic design job to funnel my creative energy into being a full-time mom to two girls. When they started school, I began painting professionally and now work in a home studio in Massachusetts. My paintings are large and colorful with a botanical feeling mixed with architectural elements. I want people to feel like the moment in “Where the Wild Things Are” when Max’s bedroom becomes a forest. I work best on a human-sized canvases and wood panels so that there is enough room for all the things—repeated marks, opaque patches of acrylic color bumping up against translucent fields, drawn lines, scrapes, smudges, and smears. I’m an abstract painter but drawing is essential. I have found that pulling visual elements from real-life keeps the painting fresh, bold, and generates a feeling of unease or a strangely-recognizable weirdness to the piece. I love titles! The titles are a gentle invitation to that zing of understanding and the “Oh yeah, I see it!” moment.