how long have you been making art?

I have been painting since the mid-seventies however I didn’t seriously start painting until the eighties when I returned to college to get my art degree. I entered a lot of art shows during this time, won some awards and went to work full time as an illustrator and graphic artist.  When I moved to a rural area in Alabama around 1990, I lost touch with my art connections, was busy with my graphic design career and basically stopped painting until I picked up a brush again in late summer of 2001.

What other artists or movements inform my work / aesthetics / sensibilities?

I had to think about this question since I am not consciously influenced by any particular artist. It’s more of a cumulative influence from a lot of different types of art. I am naturally attracted to figurative and other art done in an exaggerated way therefore the work of some of the regionalist painters such as Thomas Hart Benton and Grant Wood has great appeal to me. Bottero was another favorite of mine as well as the colorful and expressive art of Walter Anderson, an eccentric and reclusive artist from the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Actually, I am really attracted to art that is more expressionistic than my own and done in a looser style. I hope one day to be able to paint that way.

How would you describe your work?

I would describe my work as humorous with a southern slant. I would like for my art to be a mini-vacation from reality for the viewer. Come with me to a fun place where people are not so concerned about the bodies they have to walk around in but are just carrying on with life and enjoying it the best way they know how. I usually harvest my subject matter from the ordinary, often quirky, everyday activities of living such as animals and their own little agendas and people and their often neurotic relationships with their pets. I usually have my own scenario about what is happening in the painting which I sometimes share with the viewer when I describe a piece. I find my southern upbringing to be a great source of inspiration in this regard.

What are your motivations for painting?

Creating for me is as natural as eating or breathing. It is a source of comfort when I am down and the main reason of my being nowadays. I feel the need to make up for lost time-- those years when I didn’t feel creative. Now, I don’t look back and am so thankful that I have this ability to entertain myself. It is something that I have to look forward to in the years ahead. I aspire to be one of those eccentric, inspiring, old-in-years but young-in-heart women artists that we have all heard about..

How, if at all, have the events of 9-11 impacted your painting?

The events of 9-11 have made me realize how precious life is and how soon it can be taken away or changed forever. It has made me appreciate my abilities as an artist and know that I don’t ever want to squander that gift again.

What do you find visually stimulating right now?

Body types and faces, animals and their expressions, color combinations, light and it’s effect on color, southern culture and dialect. I realize that all of this is not visual, but it is what currently inspires me.

Tell me about some upcoming projects.

I want to explore texture, mixed media, a more expressive technique and some larger works as well as portraits of people..

What would your fellow EBSQ artists and our collectors to know about you?

I am a sucker for humor and always on the lookout for subject matter. Therefore, no one is safe from my scrutiny so you just might want to RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!!!.

Paintings shown here:

(1) Cookie, Babs & Peach (Tourist Season at the Riptide Motel Series)
(2) Nadine and Puff (Lap Dog Series)
(3) Cat on a Red Tin Roof
(4) Alien Abduction
(5) Natasha
(6) Beth Ann and Butch