ARTIST STATEMENT To me, watching the sea and the way the light touches the land is pure magic. I grew up on Long Island, spending my summers at the beach and at my Grandparents home on the Bay. When I married my high school sweetheart, we decided to move to San Diego in Southern California. We'd spent the summer in Mission Beach in San Diego, the year before we made our big move; then we went back to finish school in very cold upstate New York. All winter I had a poster from Sunset magazine (a magazine of So. Cal) inside my kitchen cabinet with a family enjoying Thanksgiving Dinner on a beautiful patio overlooking the blue Pacific. In the meantime, from our second story apartment in cold New York, we watched out our kitchen window, as an icicle grow to be about ten feet long and shivered as the wind blew through the cracks of our old upstairs apartment. As soon as we could, we packed up and told the relatives, we were moving West. I know in my heart, my husband and I have to live close to the sea and Southern California was perfect. It's part of who we are. And now so much of my paintings are about the ocean or water or the beauty of our mountains.
I love spending hours walking the beach, observing, letting my mind drift into seeing shapes and patterns, compositions and more. I love the salty air, the cry of the gulls, the sand between my toes. When I decide to paint, for me, it's how the light reads as it touches a rock, a wave or a mountaintop and I ask myself, how can I bring that moment to life? 
This is "Summer Fun"
I've always been a dreamer and being an artist, just lets me do what I love, daydream, create and be in the moment. I remember as a child, watching the snow fall, transferring a rather plain place to something magical. I'd be caught daydreaming again, looking out of the second story classroom window, instead of my history book!
The fun begins when I have an idea, see something that begs to be painted and I begin putting that juicy oil paint on the canvas and having my favorite brush in my hand. I love working in Oils, they're so receptive to the touch and work so well on location. I'm always exploring and asking myself if I can make that rock or wave feel just right? Will I feel like the wave is moving or the sun is reflecting off the mountainside? All of this is so important in my work. I have always loved new ideas, new ways to see things and always loved to experiment. Each new painting I do, I'm reaching for a better way to interpret what I see. I want to feel it. I paint what I love, that's my inspiration. It's pure joy.
I recently came across a quote from Henry Beecher, and thought about it. The Quote is “He that reads nature, reads God’s language, it’s the artist’s responsibility to interpret it." and what a huge challenge that is. I've always loved a challenge and I guess that's why I never seem to get tired of painting, it's always reaching for perfection. 
BIOGRAPHY
One of the first paintings I remember doing in First Grade won an award. I remember feeling enormously proud and happy. Perhaps this was the beginning of the joy I've had participating in shows, over my forty years of painting. Growing up, I enjoyed crafts and drawing. I still remember the fun it was to get a new box of Crayola crayons with their new points and lushes colors.
As a child, I also remember watching John Nagy draw on television. My parents worked and I was often alone, so to amuse myself, I'd copy pictures I saw in magazines. In school, I always looked forward to the day the art teacher would visit our classroom. It was always a highlight. In high school, I admired my art teacher. She was very instrumental in my love for art, helping expand my vision through art history and the use of mediums. After high school, she would host a yearly get together of her students. She even went as far as keeping a scrapbook of our achievements.
I married at nineteen and in my twenties had a growing family, not allowing much time for art. With four little ones, I put my artistic endeavors aside for a while. Then in my thirties, my young family, now all in school, and I took my first real art class. I tried several teachers, using different mediums. It was when I took a class in oils, I found I loved the way they responded and felt I wanted to pursue painting, using oils. To this day I feel oil is the medium for me, since it works best with my style and can easily be transported out of doors.
Later, I found professional working artists teaching at Scottsdale Artists School and decided I'd take week long classes in Scottsdale, leaving the family responsibilities with my husband. Fortunately he encouraged me and I was on my way. For a week at a time, I would take classes from morning to night with artists I admired. These special times fed my artistic soul and I knew, I would work hard to become the artist I wanted to be. I continued at the Scottsdale classes and also studied with artists such as David Leffel who taught at Art Students League in Manhattan.
The artists I studied with graciously shared their talents, and I learned so much and also learned how painting from life was so critical to my growth. Some of the classes I'd taken, were taught on location, or outside, and I found I enjoyed and learned the most from these, from Nature. Today most of what I do, starts out of doors and I'm constantly observing, reminding myself to be in the moment.
I love painting the ocean and it truly is a difficult subject, being in perpetual motion. I believe the only way to learn to paint moving water is first hand, being there, on location and constantly watching and learning about the anatomy or the sea and absorbing her moods. Because I love painting the sea, I've studied and visited seascape paintings in many museums. Two of my favorite masters of the sea are Frederick Waugh and E. John Robinson. I love reading and learning about their lives and what their thoughts were about their paintings. Something I believe, and loved this passage by Frederick Waugh and I quote, "If you really love nature, she will love you and teach you far more that any human creature can do".
In my forty plus years of creating art, I've never tired of participating in events, from Plein Air shows, to museum and gallery shows all over the country. I have been honored with numerous awards and will mention a few. A couple of years ago, I was truly honored when the curator of the Scottsdale Museum of the West chose my 30 X 40 oil painting, titled "Desert Magic", as the winner at the American Women Artists' Gold Medal Masters and Signatures Award in 2018. I am also honored to have two paintings in the permanent collection of the Western Heritage Museum in El Cajon, California. Paintings have been juried and shown in various museums including the Booth Museum in Carterville, Georgia, the Haggen Museum in Stockton, California.
American Artists Professional League of NY choose "Springtime In The Valley", 44 X 33 oil, as the winner of Best Techniques and Use of Medium Award in 2019. International Artist included my seascapes for their magazine article titled, "Seascapes, Lakes and Rivers" and my seascape titled "Overlook" was named Third Place Overall at the Plein Air Salon in 2018.
"Light and Shadow" garnered me an award by naming me an award winning Plein Air oil painter specializing in the Natural World in Art of the West. I was also named one of the Ten Top Women Artists in the Nov/Dec 2012 issue of Art of the West Magazine. "Light and Shadow", a painting of the Torrey Pines Preserve, received Paint Americas Top 100 Award.
PUBLICATIONS
Southwest Art Magazine, Nov 2019 "Golden State Artist"
Art of the West Magazine feature story, May 2016 "Landscape Love Affair"
American Art Collector "Reflections of Nature 2014"
Art of the American West - Coffee Table book by Linscott and Dull
Dust on My Shoes, Sun on my Back by Deborah Chapin
How Did You Paint That? 100 Ways to Paint the Landscape by International Artist
AFFILIATIONS
Signature Member of American Impressionist Society, Women Artists of the West, American Women Artists, Fellow Member of American Artists Professional League, NYC
Juried Member of Oil Painters of America, National Oil and Acrylic Painters, California Art Club and Invited Juried member of the Salmagundi Club of NYC
