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I am from Leelanau County in northern Michigan, US. As a young child I lived in the Port Oneida farm district, where the beauty of the landscape was often at odds with its harshness. I use line and color to convey feelings of love, danger, volatility, loneliness, anger, sorrow, and elation. In my work I explore the following: what is important, what is necessary, what is unnecessary, what is unnecessary yet must be included, where is the balance, where is the out of balance. The tension in my work is created by painting the answers to these types of questions. I see these questions as metaphors for life’s biggest and most insistent conundrums. What do we remove? What do we keep? And why? My painting process includes watching for forms to appear while paying equal attention to the silent spaces. Darkness gives life to light, and lightness gives life to darkness. An abstract painter at heart, I am intrigued by messages that are conveyed without words—by energy, by intention and, most magically, by pigment and linseed oil. I currently live in Carrboro, North Carolina, where I paint in my outdoor studio.