"If I hadn't been a painter I would have raised chickens...it's all art" -Grandma Moses

I have been an artist all my life. In a sense we all are. I just chose to put it on canvas. And, I try to be artistic in everything I do. Whether it's washing my car or bathing a baby, I artfully touch with careful hands. To me, art is closely linked with love and compassion, which is why all of us being artists is important, so that collectively we can love what is and live with it peacefully. We must continue to nurture the brain's thirst for art. It's the soil from which the seed of compassion grows and allows us to walk in beauty. It can heal. I know. If we are to survive as a creative culture we need art.

In art school an instructor once told me that true art should be a reflection of our times. I struggled with that and with my contemporaries depictions of the times we live in... not such a pretty painting. Accurate no doubt, but not something I want to bathe myself in. So, I chose early on to express the feelings nature brings me. The way the grass dances with the wind on the open prairie, and the sound of snow crunching under foot. I love what happens when chloroform leaves the leaf and turns absence into color... death into life. I love fields in spring when the smell of clover blooms and waves of blossoms become oceans of color. I love how colors love other colors... and texture enhances their love.

When I'm creating a new piece I sit with it for hours, sometimes never putting on a touch of paint. I dream with it for days, even years. I play with it again...and again. I talk to it, sing with it, laugh and cry with it. Love it. When I'm finished with a work, which rarely happens, I sit back and let it embrace me with all that is beautiful. Giant peace comes over me. That is why I paint. To know that the world is still a beautiful place and peace can be. I dedicate my work to the greatest mother of all. Nature.