I grew up in a family of artists in California. After earning a degree in Fine Arts from Syracuse University in New York, I came to Maine in the late 1970!s. I began my art career in Maine as a quiltmaker, developing an affinity for color and pattern, before becoming an art teacher on Mount Desert Island in 1991. Now retired, I have a full-time studio practice that includes painting, collage, altered books, and Exquisite Corpse writing. I exhibit my work at Artemis Gallery in Northeast Harbor and am part of a group show there every other year. My art is inspired and shaped by my years of observing and being a part of the natural world in Maine. When painting, I combine elements of the landscape in a composition that is improvised and free-form. This allows me to respond to the process and explore a range of possibilities. My art has also been influenced by travel and solo retreats to other countries and cultures that I’ve taken over the years as an artist. After years of teaching, I’ve become aware of how children's art has inspired my work. Participating in this kind of creativity, over a long period of time, is one of my deepest influences. I am an artist of ideas and am always happiest when I’m exploring new concepts and making connections. This is partly my inherent temperament, but is also the result of the years I spent teaching and learning from children. As the painter Mark Rothko, also a K-8 art teacher (for 20 years before painting his color field abstractions), said, “A painting is not a picture of an experience, but is the experience.” Art is primarily exploration and discovery, as in the call and response of improvisation. For me, the most important thing is to be completely present for the process itself.