I paint in series.  The portfolios Chamisa Ghosts and Self Portraits and Studying Chamisa contain my most recent work.  These pastel paintings were initially inspired by my own writing about chamisa. In these new paintings, I ground  myself in  the visual complexity of northern New Mexico’s indigenous shrub, chamisa. The magical and structural combine as I explore my own impermanence within a relationship to nature. After a phase of largely abstract painting, I have returned to careful observation of the visual world at the same time as I contemplate ghosts and the unknowns of time. Representations of chamisa coalesce with images of my face and my, now silvery, hair becomes chamisa streaming in the wind.  I joke that, as I age, I am going to achieve immortality by merging with a plant!   

I started working in pastel in the mid 80's following a period of drawing in graphite for several years. When I returned to color, I was no longer drawn to the brush and prefered the direct touch involved in working with pastel. Pastel is pure, just pigment plus binder. Its vivid color creates an emotional impact. This impact, this moment when something mysterious happens, is central to my work. As landscape merges with self portrait, surprises are welcomed. The resonating layers and vivid colors of pastel suit my subject matter as well as my interest in evoking a world bordering on that of the dream.  

The portfolios related to the Yeat’s poem The Second Coming and also the images in the portfolio about Climate Change were inspired by poetry.While painting in response to the incantory poem The Second Coming, I chanted the line that inspired me, inviting the collective and personal unconscious into my painting process.  Each of these pieces is titled with a line or phrase from the poem. 

In the portfolio about Climate Change I respond to a book of poetry The Water Leveling With Us, by Donald Levering. I took a line or an entire poem as a prompt. For instance, “Preach the Gospel of the Avenging Sea” is a line from the title poem.   

All these paintings are layered both literally (I apply many layers of pastel) and also metaphorically. For some, my work may "speak" at first glance, but many viewers find that the longer they remain engaged with a painting, the more is revealed.  

The concept of "pareidolia" suits my work.  Pareidolia is the perception of apparently significant patterns or recognizable images, in abstract arrangements of shapes and lines.

The portfolio Insomnia Paintings and Nighworks  contains many pieces created late at night. One of these Insomnia Tree (to the left)  speaks to the situation: I often can’t sleep. Watercolors playfully done and then abandoned become the basis for whatever is occupying me in a near dream state as I paint. To the right, Mora, the name of a place on fire in the desert southwest, the spirng of 2022. Keeping me awake at night.  Studio Abstractions portfolio contains a number of major pastel paintings that don’t fit into any of the above categories and the Plein Air Portfolio is self explanatory. The emotional impact of color is my major visual tool. I often find it grounding to select a predetermined palette based on color theory. My images change as one looks and lingers. Subtle transitions, shifting references to representation, and lively figure-ground relationships evoke imagination and the imagery within abstraction. In addition to my primary media, pastel, I also work with mixed media applying pastel and a variety of pencils on top of watercolor.

I've been painting outdoors for many years and engaged in loving observation of nature all my life. My abstract work reflects the rhythms, light, texture and colors of the natural world.