I began painting in September, 2023 during one of the most difficult periods of my life. My husband, an oil painter, had recently passed, and I developed health issues that forced me to retire unexpectedly early. That September something in my subconscious told me to go to my husband’s and my daughter’s studio in our loft, and pick up a paintbrush. There was an abundance of art supplies there, and I had never painted before; he had always said I should try as he believed I had an excellent sense of color. I wanted to paint my emotions, privately and with no pressure to paint in any particular tradition. The feeling of dipping my brush in paint and making random, energetic marks on a large piece of paper was freeing, and I started to paint every day. I signed up for a workshop, then a course, then several more courses. I received very positive feedback on my use of color from my daughter, my friends, my art teacher, and others in my classes, and I continued painting. I made new friends. I started an Instagram. I started to sell a few works to friends, and I started entering shows on the North Shore. I joined an art group affiliated with the Newburyport Art Association, the Abstract Artists Group of New England. Painting quickly gave me the focus I needed to begin rebuilding a fulfilling life, free of unhealthy stress. My paintings are abstract, as that gives me the freedom to explore paints, color and composition without having to worry about whether an object in the painting is realistic and rendered correctly. This approach allows me to paint loosely, from intuition, and I never know where a painting will end up when I start it. The joy of discovery is an integral part of my approach to painting, and it is evident whether I am painting an abstracted landscape, an abstracted floral painting, or an abstracted seascape. The viewer can find and see what they like in my paintings, and that vision makes any painting uniquely theirs. What one person sees as a butterfly, another might see as a wildflower. The viewers’ excitement as they find familiar objects in my paintings brings me great joy.