Why and How
When I began painting regularly in 2010, I wondered about the representational quality of my work as compared with my mother-in-law’s wonderful abstract paintings that I have lived with for decades. It took a while for me to accept “how I paint” and just keep going. I accept that I am a vibrant, expressive person. I love to work in a series and take time to expand on an idea, make commentary, or understand faces and forms. The point is to achieve a good effort, call it done, and continue being productive. Somewhere along the line, I found a phrase that works for me: Be Creative, Be Productive, Be Happy.
With double/multiple portraits, I address the way figures relate to one another and how negative space imposes itself in the composition. A solitary human subject is demanding. I want to show how the environment might be as important as the individual. When I paint animal subjects, I want to convey my appreciation and allow the image to serve as a metaphor for my sharp perspective. I prefer domesticated or wild animals. Many animal subjects are from a rescue group located at the Spencer-Peirce-Little Farm in Newbury, Massachusetts. My landscapes stem from different times and seasons, and force attention towards light and distance. Street scenes in Newburyport show my interest in the quirkiness of perspective, structural lines and shapes, and outright charm of the area. Maritime paintings are challenging excursions. I work towards achieving a boat form that conveys grace and movement with compositional effects involving light and water. Beaver lodges come across to me as a combination of patterns that create a mysterious mood in a place.
How and Why
I love the action of painting. It is a pleasure and thrill, even when a session turns out to be an exploration rather than a completed stage of development. I work for a good effort, look at the work when it has dried, and then allow the process to tell me what else is needed. Sometimes, it is better to try anew and let multiples form a series that demonstrate development.
I love to draw with a brush – this is fun physically and emotionally. Thin and wide edges define forms and fill in areas of composition, bring in different mark-making, and produce an impact. My painting is representational, but I am not so concerned about a hard reliance on reality. Often, less is more. A suggested structural detail or light effect may yield the necessary comprehension. One’s own eyes and mind might be called upon to produce the impact. Still, it takes effort to be convincing about horizon lines and perspective, figures and faces, season and time of day.
Color is paramount. I rely on it to reach a thrill in the process, an attempt to reach the emotional impact, and satisfaction in the final work. Still, I believe the human brain reads value contrast as an initial “way in” to looking an image. This two-way street of color/value is a back-and-forth development to work out what becomes the final image. I work with a limited palette and mix colors. Painting details that involve skin, fur, feathers and water are interesting to work through for color effects and brushwork.
I prefer to paint in the studio. Oil and acrylic media are useful in different ways. I usually have several oil paintings under development to allow drying, looking, and deciding what to do next. I call it “sneaking up on the painting” because my process becomes more deliberative and controlled with oil paint. The oil color richness is appealing and develops from applications and curing of the paint over time. Acrylic painting on canvas can yield a quicker result for a session, but I still need time to achieve an impact with the reflected, flat color. Brushwork effects are important to pull the composition together. Using acrylic paint on paper is fun because the paper grabs the paint off the brush, allowing for a loose, expressive quality that combines transparencies from watercolor technique with opaque layers. Sometimes, an acrylic composition comes together in one session. After drying fully, where the paper may sharpen paint edges and paint values deepen, a few adjustments may be needed for the final result.
Extra note 2026: My quilting work began in 1979 and continues to this day. It is a pleasant pastime. For many years, I made large, complex quilts. I love to work with color, be productive and resourceful, and take the time in all stages to “get it right” before calling the work done. I love all stages of production, from working out the design, cutting fabric, putting it all together, then hand-finishing. What I accomplish at one stage generally informs the next. Recently, I shifted to snuggle-sized quilts that one can use atop a bed or on a sofa. I intentionally use my collection of saved materials. My orientation is to use larger pieces of fabrics to create the design. I work in series of three and with a restrained number of fabrics. Although the individual quilt can come together quickly, I try different ideas for each stage of the final production.
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