I consider myself a plein air painter.  I paint outdoors, in front of and in emotional response to the landscape.  I visit a site often, at various times of the day and in various weather conditions and work quickly, usually completing one small “alla prima” painting per session.  I paint as a way to explore and become intimate with a place and to better understand the visual phenomena surrounding it. 

But I’m also interested in exploring the memory of a place – a memory acquired through long and careful observation as a plein air painter.  I want to synthesize all the visual phenomena that I remember and distill it down into a single, concise image.  So I often work in that direction in my studio. 

These larger paintings allow me to revisit the traditional gilding technique that was my specialty for many years as a sign painter. I now often use 23k gold, platinum and dyed sterling silver leaf as representational shapes that are integral to the painting and which, by their reflective nature, physically mimic the shifting and interactive quality of the light in the landscape.

I approach my still life painting in the same manner: small, quick studies of fruits or vegetables followed by larger, more carefully organized, formal paintings that often incorporate the light gathering qualities of gold leaf.

I also show a small body of digital images. These straddle the line between landscape and still life and are the very essence of how I view and enjoy the visual world. Color, shape and value, in their exquisite subtleties, are tightly and geometrically related to each other in found, unarranged objects.

I live with my husband Lee, who is a blacksmith and sculptor, on a working homestead on the sunny south slope of Big House Mountain in Rockbridge County, Virginia. I teach painting locally and exhibit paintings nationally.