I have been painting and creating art since high school and I am now in my 70’s. I majored in art in college. In Chicago, after college I studied at the Chicago Art Institute in non-credit courses and at the Evanston Art Center.

I have studied with some wonderful teachers: Bonnie Hartenstein, Eleanor Spiess-Ferris, and Paul Abbott. In 2011 I moved from the Midwest to Prescott. The landscape here is a real change for me and as such I noticed many exciting details of the plants, rocks and big sky. I started to focus on landscapes.

As I looked I noticed the magnificent light here. I saw life in the way the light hits leaves and changes the color of plant life. To me this is truly where life is being made as the light gives the plants what they need to grow. There is energy everywhere. Color is my joy. My challenge is to show the energy in life’s beginnings in the landscape using color. How do I find my subjects? Sometimes there is a model and I enjoy looking at the life in the face and body.

Also as I walk outside I take pictures of the landscape when I see something that catches my eye. Sometimes I start a painting outdoors, and finish it using a photograph. Sometimes I use a photograph from my cache of photos. Recently I have decided that a few photos can stand as art and I have them printed to hang and sell. Some of my paintings are completely invented by me and as I paint, the subject develops.