Welcome to my Studio!

From the time I was quite young – maybe eight or ten years old, art has called to me powerfully. One day, I made my way up into the unused and unheated second floor of St. Bridget’s School to paint. Since that moment, I have been completely focused on art. I was born and raised in Rochester NY but left the area after graduating with an Art Education degree from Nazareth College. I’ve lived in many places since then, but two years ago, my husband Tom and I moved to Honeoye Falls in the town of Mendon. Coming home has brought challenges to me and lots of joys in rediscovering my hometown area and all the painting opportunities locally and in the beautiful Finger Lakes and beyond. I am especially glad that I have joined the Greater Rochester Plein Air Painters and the Genesee Valley Plein Air Painters, who give me an artist community and show me where the cool spots to paint are!

In this exhibit, I’d like to introduce myself to the neighborhood!  I will show a variety of work from different stages of my painting career: seashore work, florals, and very recent local scenes, including some from my personal flower garden.

Painting and exhibiting always were my passion. I presented solo shows in Vermont, Kansas, Maine, New York, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Washington DC. I often begin my work plein aire and thereafter take my ideas into the studio and develop many into more complex studio pieces. My most notable series’ include a “Year in Bloom” (365 small paintings of flowers), and “Remembrance – the Pink Chair Project”, a traveling exhibit and book celebrating my mother’s memory. My most recent exhibits “Color on the Wharf” and “At Water’s Edge” are based on my love for the beauty of the working waterfront and care for those who preserve the wooden ships and work the lobster boats. I also find that throughout the years I consistently return to series that include flowers – who would not, when presented with such transcendent, yet evanescent, beauty?

ARTIST’S STATEMENT 

I observe everything – people, things, nature – everything. In my observations, I find beauty, and often, stories. Many of my paintings start on the site and those ideas that particularly call me move into the studio for more focused study. There I work to further capture the color, light and energy that fills them all.