Hanging over the chalkboard in my first grade classroom was a reproduction of The Angelus by Jean-Francois Millet.
This painting was my introduction to art. No one ever spoke of it. It just hung there. When the noon bells rang at the church, we all stood up just like the farmers in the picture had stopped their work for a moment in the middle of the day.
Meanwhile at home my parents and five siblings were all abuzz with cooking, plumbing, electrical work, piano playing, fiddling, drumming, sewing, reading, listening to music. My parents were teaching us all the time as they engaged us in what were just natural activities. Amid all the noise there were great discoveries happening. It was an ever intriguing way to grow up. I am grateful to my parents for their patience to teach us what they knew.
To escape once in a while from the busy household I retreated to a small glade hidden among treelings in the swampy area at the foot of the slope the house stood on. Like a tiny cathedral that only I knew about, I could sit in nature and be still. Soaking up all the hidden treasures of the silence and surrounding wild flora formed me in ways that allow me to spend time making things. I believe that space fed this artist, allowing me to access deep wells so that images, sounds, words can take shape for communicating to others.
When I began painting in high school my teacher taught me to explore many different mediums on my own, to take one subject and depict it in 100 ways. At LSU I studied with professors who had been students of the great color theorist Josef Albers, namely Harvey Harris and Paul Dufour. They expanded my knowledge, understanding and use of color leading to a BFA in painting and drawing. During that time I also studied with abstract expressionist Milton Resnick at the Blossom Kent Summer Art Program. He encouraged me to tell my own story. At the Corcoran School of Art I studied with the late Leon Berkowicz, a Washington Color School painter.
My year of living in Paris rekindled my connection to Pierre Bonnard whom I consider my greatest influence. Mary Vernon, Janine Nagy and David Hornung at Mississippi Art Colony and Laurel True at True Mosaic Studio in New Orleans are others from whom I have learned.
Keeping paintings and collages going simultaneously is my practice because the two inform each other. Forests and mythology enchant me into giving them form in my works.
I am a teaching artist for adults and children in a number of settings including Academy Art Museum, Heartfields, and Talbot County Free Library in Talbot County, Maryland. I am a member of the Aqua Regia Press at Anne Arundel Community College and the Chesapeake Collage Guild in Annapolis, MD.