ARTIST PROFILE

ARTWORK STATEMENT

You will find recognizable subjects in my landscapes…the Four Peaks, Picacho Peak, the Far View Tower at the Grand Canyon. Early in my painting life, I learned that my collectors enjoy recognizing the location of my paintings, especially if they have been there. I pick the location for the story it can tell; the history of my life as well as Arizona’s and the American West.
My painting of the 70’ Desert View Tower at the Grand Canyon celebrates work by one of my heroes, Architect Mary Jane Colter who designed many National Park Service buildings including Bright Angel Lodge at the Canyon. The Tower, built in 1932, reflects the Anasazi Indians’ watchtowers scattered across the Southwest “Geronimo Named My Grandmother” refers to the family story that two Apache Indians arrived at my great-grand- parents’ house in the hills north of Tucson just as my grandmother was born and asked to name the baby. They called her Wauneta, ate lunch and left. Was Geronimo one of them? 
My green “Papago Giants,” keeps company with a blue Beth Ames Swartz painting in an art-filled Carefree home.
Here I should tell you that my paintings don’t follow “local” color. My skies will be bright turquoise, soft orange or threatening green; mountains, red, turquoise, orange, dark blues, structures, animals or birds. . .whatever color looks good! Since I am not copying nature, or trying to imitate it, I use the colors I like.
I didn’t start out as an artist. I never was the kid in class who was always drawing horses in the margin of their books or cartoons of their teachers on the back of their papers. If I drew anything, it was daisies. And not very good ones at that. So, I became a writer. . .not fiction, my imagination didn’t allow it…but newswriting. I spent 40 years writing news stories, features, newsletters and PR pieces. I retired early from a public relations job with the Maricopa County Community Colleges and took a painting class; after all, the motto of MCCC is lifelong learning. Then I took another and another. Fifteen years later I am still taking classes. Surprisingly, I learned I could do in oil paint what I could never do with pen or pencil. Classmates loved my colors, I was accepted into juried exhibitions and people wanted to buy my paintings! I could not have imagined a more wonderful second life!