In1943, Kenmore, WA. sprang into my view. It was there, under the dining room table, that i began my studies at the Currier and Ives "floor" school, with areas of concentration in both tall ships with billowing sails and elongated, graceful horses. When I was about five, my family began wandering like gypys, and it was in this time period that i actually saw a real horse, and discovered that Currier and Ives weren't all that all-knowing. (Thus began my life as a skeptic.) We eventually settled on Bainbridge Island, where I schooled from fourth grade on through high school.

When I was in the 6th and 7th grade, I had a wonderful teacher named Mr. Guttebo, who encouraged me to make art. He also answered my child-questions about why people did the things they did, which began a lifelong interest in how human's operate and why. After I graduated, I moved to San Francisco so as to see the other world. (Life on an island is so circumspect when one is that age!) In 1964, I sold my first oil painting to an encyclopedia salesman without having to buy his books - which I think was quite the coup.
Many adventures later, I was a single parent with a wondrous boy child, painting Victorian houses for a living. Painting is painting is painting, i often opined. I hadn't counted on age. At forty, the ladders had put on weight and were heavy beyond measure. Besides, I was frustrated after years of not being able to put down on canvas what i was seeing in my head. Retiring my brushes and rollers In 1980, I submitted my portfolio to the Art & Design Department at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, and was accepted, graduating four years later with a B.S. in Applied Art and Design. Toward the end of 1989 on a trip home to visit family in Seattle, I realized how much I had missed the Northwest green. With my son off on his own by then, I returned to California and immediately packed up my house and sold it. By the first month of 1990, I was ecstatically moving to Lopez Island, where i have lived happily ever after. My little cabin is near the end of a long dirt road through the woods, at the high bank waters edge, where I am surrounded by dogs and cats and birds, friends and rabbits and deer in the gardens and books and art and my mom earth.

Pictures often pop into my mind's eye almost fully rendered while listening to music, or reading, while working in the garden, and often while driving. The picture itself determines what medium I will use. Some call for tight renderings which in turn want either colored pencil or graphite or pen and ink, and others are looser and want to be rendered in oils or oil pastels. Always, I love thick, rich colors because they more match my passion for life and ideas. (There isn't much that is quiet about me!) Mostly these mind pictures have to do with our human interactions with each other and the earth. While often these are serious subjects, they tend to come out of me slightly skewed and off kilter. I can't imagine life without humor - it would just be too sad and hard. Thusly, I have cultivated what i think of as a crow's sensibilities; I believe they watch us and laugh because they understand what silly creatures we really are - no offense!

As Bob Dylan said, "I'm not trying to say anything. I'm just singing about what I see."

I hope you will enjoy seeing what I see. Thank you!