How long have you been creating?

Always. At an early age I had an interest in things that were dark, sleek, and fast, so by the age of four I was drawing running horses and experimental aircraft. From kindergarten on, I was the kid who could draw, winning all the blue ribbons in the school art shows. By the time I was sixteen, I was selling regularly to teachers and parents, and had my work in a gallery.

Art was always easy for me, but it was never my favorite pastime. Everyone expected me to be an artist, so of course that was the last thing I wanted to do! I loved horseracing, and dreamed of being a jockey. After college (Graphic Design, San Jose State University), I found a compromise that made everyone happy: I began a career painting the Sport of Kings. Which I happily pursued for the next fifteen years, until I moved away from the San Francisco Bay area.

What is your media of choice?

Currently, I paint with acrylics on canvas or paper. I started as a watercolorist, then worked primarily in oils for fifteen years. During that time, I lived and painted at home in rooms with inadequate ventilation. Breathing solvents and varnishes 24 hours a day eventually made me very ill, and I was forced to give up oils. Even now, a dozen years later, I'm still hypersensitive to a lot of chemicals. So I use formaldehyde-free fluid acrylic paints, sometimes combined with India ink and pastels.

Often I curse acrylics, because I'd love to be able to blend a shadow or soften an edge like I did so easily in oils. But overall, acrylics are a good compromise for me, because I didn't have to abandon everything I'd learned prior to working in them. I start every painting like it's a watercolor, with bold splashes of water-thinned paint, and end it like an oil, refining it with thicker, more opaque paint. I've learned to use the fast drying time of acrylics to my advantage, rather than let it handicap me.

What are you motivations for creating?

My motivation has changed over the years. I was in my twenties in the materialistic 1980s, so - like everyone else around me - I was driven by the desire to be rich and famous. In my thirties, I wanted to be one of the top three equine artists in the world. Didn't have to be Number One, just one of the top three. Ah, the lofty dreams of youth! Now I'm in my forties and all that ambition seems so silly and trivial now. I've mellowed. All I really want is for my husband and I to have a happy and fulfilling life together. As part of that life, I paint. I have a talent, and feel a responsibility to explore it. These days, I work to develop myself into a good artist, not just a good equine artist.

What other artists or movements inform your work?

I'm drawn to artists who combine line and paint. I admire the paintings of Eric Sloane for the graphic quality of his line work combined with right-on light and color. His paintings of New Mexico particularly capture a truth for me. He was also very prolific, often producing a painting by noon every day. I wish I could do that! I like Peter Max for his whimsical lines, and colors that never fail to put a smile on my face. Wayne Thiebaud, for color, texture, design, and some really wonderful edges.

What do you find visually stimulating right now?

Light. It's always been light for me. Ordinary objects can look amazing in the right light.

I was fortunate to grow up in the mountains of southern California, high above the smog of Los Angeles. The light is spectacular there, crystal clear and saturated with color. Living with that amazing light every day taught me how to see. Though I no longer live there, that light permeates everything I paint today. One of the nice things people say about my work is that there's a clarity to my colors. That's nothing more than my memory of the light of my youth coming through.

What's the last book you read?

"Mastering Digital Printing," by Harald Johnson. I'd recommend it to anyone thinking about producing art reproductions at home.

I love to read for pleasure, but rarely have time to do so these days. One book I pick up when I have a few spare minutes is "Why Cats Paint - A History of Feline Aesthetics" by Heather Busch and Burton Silver. It's a hilarious send-up of the pretentiousness of art criticism, with tongue held so firmly in cheek, sometimes even I take them seriously. Every artist and cat lover should have a copy on their coffee table for unsuspecting visitors.

Tell us about some of your artistic goals for 2006.

One of the things I plan to pursue fully in 2006 is making high quality reproductions of my work at home. The ability to produce affordable prints on demand is very exciting to me. There aren't enough hours in a day for me to make a living by painting and selling just originals, but with prints, I just might be able to do it. Thinking in terms of reproductions rather than originals puts me in a new creative mindset, because it allows me to consider projects I once thought were too time-consuming. Now I don't have to worry so much about hours worked vs. potential profit. The image I paint this week could still be making money for us decades from now. So look for bigger, more complex works from me.

Because we're eventually going to be marketing quite a few reproductions, I'm jumping deeper into e-commerce, finally setting up a store on my website. This is a big step for me, because I've been on the web since early 1995, and have never been able to draw enough traffic to make on-site sales viable. Now, thanks to my popular works-in-progress blog, and my increased awareness of SEO, that is starting to change. I'll still be listing on eBay and other online sites while I phase in the new store.

What would you like your fellow EBSQ artists and our collectors to knowabout you and/or your work?

Something that might seem unusual to some readers is that I'm not trying to convey a message though my art. I work to avoid it. Years ago, I thought my job was to show you what I saw, and tell you what I thought and felt. In horrible, boring detail. Every stroke, every tiny detail selfishly screamed, "Me. Me! ME!" Now, I've come to realize that my job is not to talk about me, but to provide you with a catalyst so you can live your own experiences. This is a concept common to music, cinema, and literature, but it took me awhile to realize I should be using it in my own art. Between you and me, there's the space I call the "in-between." That's where art and life happens. It's that magical space between Adam and God in Michelangelo's Creation of Adam, a gap just far enough for a spark to jump. For a long time, when I saw a space, my instinct was to fill it. I try not to do that anymore. I'm learning to leave some of the work undone, some of the spaces intact, so you can share in the creative process. That's probably the most important thing I've learned in forty years of painting.