Here I am working “en plein air” in the California sunshine…
Working from a combination of direct observation, photographs, and memory. I paint landscapes and seascapes inspired by light, movement, and color. I’m less interested in duplicating a scene than in capturing how it felt to be there—the energy, the atmosphere, and the sense of place. I want my paintings to feel like an invitation to step into the landscape and sometimes, into the sea. Memory, for me, is not only about how a place looked but even more about how it felt to be there—the light shifting, the movement of water or wind, the emotional resonance of standing within the landscape. Color plays the most important role in conveying that experience. I am drawn to and most often use bright, saturated palettes that amplify both mood and presence.
and in my studio.
When I was a child I loved to watch my mother paint. She was a watercolor artist and it was magical to me to see the pigments flowing in pools of water and watching them come to life, taking on the shapes of hills, trees, buildings, and the human form. I wanted to make that magic too, so she began to teach me what she had learned from great California regionalists Rex Brant and Phil Dike, who she had known and and studied with at their school in Corona Del Mar.
I began selling my paintings while still a Fine Arts major at the University of California at Berkeley. Over the years my work has been collected by an international clientele and has been commissioned for restaurants, hotels and office buildings.
Next to making art, traveling is the thing I love to do most. This gives me so many opportunities to be on the lookout for that convergence of circumstance, composition, light and shadow that create a perfect moment. And of course living and working in the San Francisco Bay area, I am also inspired to paint the varied landscapes of this beautiful place I’ve called home for over thirty years.