THE ARTIST CONFRONTS LIFE Print

I grew up in Las Vegas. I took my first art class in high school and knew then wherever my path led, it had to include art. In college I was certain that path was ceramics. But an old injury and a diagnosis of arthritis made working with cold and wet clay extremely painful. I had to quit. When I arrived in the Pacific Northwest the astonishing beauty of everything around me sent me back to my first love in high school, painting. I worked as a freelance graphic artist and designer from 2005 until I retired in 2018. No matter what I did to earn a living, I always painted, either with watercolors, acrylics, or in later years, digitally. I took part in my first studio tour this year where I sold both computer generated art and paintings. I use patterns as part of a larger whole in my abstract paintings to demonstrate the connection of all things to each other. The buildings in my cityscapes pick up color from the sky, the vegetation, and from their own reflections in the water. All the colors are connected not only to each other, but to everything else as well. As an artist in these divided times, I have a moral obligation to show how we are all connected, how we are all pieces of one whole. If a tree reflected in the water can explain how everything in nature is connected not only to its surroundings, but to us as well, then maybe we can begin to understand our divisions are not as solid as they seem. I also paint dark, impressionistic scenes, usually in blacks and grays, to show the emotional difficulties many face. The darkness in these images is the darkness in us that needs to awaken to what it truly means to be human. I want people to emotionally feel that darkness so they can develop a deeper understanding of their fellow humans in emotional turmoil.