Spellbound Painting

My art career began in 1964 with drawings of Godzilla in battle with squadrons of fighter jets. Fellow first graders were my early collectors for these scenes of chaos; all free for the asking. At the time, no one knew I'd rather draw cars and castles, but the Godzilla drawings were so popular and made my friends so happy, I couldn't resist. When I was ten years old, my parents (AKA Santa Claus) gave me a microscope for Christmas. The entire process of using the microscope fascinated me; the lens that had two settings, the little rectangular glass slides, even the gray metal box it came in! But of course the best thing was getting a good look into an infinitely tiny magical world. A grain of sugar became a revelation to me. A blade of grass could turn into a hairy log! The scales of a butterfly wing astounded me. I think my parents knew me better than to expect the microscope to be a launching pad into a bio-science career, but if by chance they did, that didn’t happen. In fact, I am quite sure that if I remember correctly, within a matter of a few months my brother or I had somehow accidentally destroyed the thing. We were not careful kids, after all. At least not with complicated things like microscopes. However... the magnified intricacies of that hidden, secret world have always stayed with me. I was asked to add a flower (in closeup) to a commissioned landscape painting a few years ago, and since that time my direction has slowly changed. I’d been painting broad expanses of sky, and have gradually moved more into the intense focus of a much smaller subject, even though I still love to paint sky. Many of my paintings incorporate a mystical, soft focus background. The sharp foreground and fuzzy background are distinctly different, but both contribute equally to the overall mood I want to convey. My subject matter varies; it may be a leaf, a flower, a rock, a twig…but my goal is to reveal the wonder of the hidden world around us. I like to focus on the geometry of the composition. Sometimes for me, the composition; the way the elements are arranged... is much more important than the actual subject matter. My paintings embrace an admiration of simplicity. Colors may be brilliant and bold, but never shocking. The work evokes a contemplative and peaceful place, be it a sun-showered field of daisies or a quiet, icy winter scene. My work has been showcased in juried shows throughout Colorado.