My paintings portray people and animals in the midst of gesture and movement. The exciting angles moving figures create allow me to compose shapes in the background that are as strong and interesting as the shapes of the subjects. The excitement of the moment is further maintained by using vibrant, glowing colors. I paint primarily in watercolor, which lets me play with light and color.

What I do is very rooted in where I live. I am interested in exploring how the people in Oregon interact with their environment. I often find inspiration in time spent on the beaches of Oregon. Many of my painted images include water, for my entire family and I swim competitively. Oregon landscapes, such as the vineyards and the people working them, also often capture my fancy.

I love exploring how people move, and how their balance point shifts with every twist and turn of their bodies. I am not interested in painting specific people, as would a portrait painter. Rather, I wish to convey movement and lighting effects. Many of my paintings emphasize the play of sunlight on the person that I am painting. When I saw a man planting Pinot grapes in his vineyard, I was particularly taken by the bright sunlight on his back leg, and knew that this particular lighting, combined with the interesting shape that his squatting created, was an image worth painting.

I want to explore universal concepts such as wind or speed or repose. Thus I might create a painting to show how a person would lean into the wind, or the splashes a swimmer makes as she moves through the water, or how a tired teenager would sit in repose on a rock.

I am active in the Arts Alliance of Yamhill County (AAYC) which annually sponsors the Art Harvest Studio Tour. 2005 marked the ninth year that I have opened my studio to the public during the Tour to demonstrate how I work. In addition, AAYC hosts school tours. We have become the main source of art education for several schools, including the Amity Opportunity House Alternative School, and several home school groups. Other schools, such as Newberg High School, bring their advanced art seminar students on the tour to watch demonstrations and ask in depth questions of the artists. This year, I was able to demonstrate for groups from five schools, plus several other children who came with their parents. In all, I demonstrated my painting technique to over 125 children and approximately 300 adults. I enjoy sharing my talents in this way, although in my heart it is the love of painting that comes before any desire to teach. I wish to paint as much as possible in order to further develop and refine my skills. I want to continue painting with water themes, and I plan to challenge my skills to portray movement by painting a series of ballroom dancers.

I like to paint in series. I find that as I paint one painting, I suddenly wonder what if I changed one aspect or another. I then start the next painting in the series in order to explore that possibility. .As soon as a person moves, their arms and legs create entirely new angles, and thus new background shapes. Thus, the possibilities for my series are nearly endless.

My work has been accepted in several juried shows, including the Northwest Watercolor Society Members Show, four Watercolor Society of Oregon shows, Beaverton Showcase, Coos Art Museum, the OSU Forestry Center, and the International Pinot Noir Festival. I have won awards for my paintings in the Watercolor Society of Oregon (where I was awarded an Achievement Award in their 2005 Fall Show), the Lake Oswego Festival of the Arts, and several Village Gallery juried shows.