SOME WORDS ABOUT MYSELF AND PAINTING

I have been a painter for 60 years now. In the beginning I went to a local art school after grammar school, on Wednesdays, and then, since I grew up in NYC, I got to go to the High School of Art and Design. When that magical 4 years were up, I moved on to The San Francisco Academy of Art for my first year of college, then returned east for my second year at Pratt Institute. At this point though, I knew what I wanted to paint. I needed to paint what I loved and not what my teachers desired, so I took a leave of absence and never looked back. I’ve been on my own, painting-wise, ever since.

The clearest way for me to say how I feel about what I see is to paint it. There are no words to say everything as clearly as I can with my brush and colors.

The first part is joie de vivre, it’s loving the world. One must love what one paints. First you go out into the world wide open, and when you fall in love with a flower, a cloud, or a shape, or a line in the sand (or all of the above!), Then you begin to paint. Even before you have a canvas the paint has begun to flow. It flows first as a sort of dance inside my being, it swirls around in there and becomes a part of me, at home with all the other paintings that make up myself. The whole world is a painting to me.

I work in transparent layers, building up oil glazes over a long time period. I work on 15 paintings at a time, so there is always a dry one ready for the next round.

When words fail, as they so often do, Paint!

Painting is a love letter to being alive. It’s a thank you note to the living world, to time, to the moment, the flowers, the surf, the wind, the moisture in the air….

Some people think I make up the clouds, but instead, the clouds make up me.

I am an independent artist, meaning that I make my living from my art, and that I work directly with my clients without a gallery go-between. I travel inside the state of Maine to art/craft events to exhibit and sell my work to the people who come to these events. I accept commissions from the people I meet when a painting doesn’t quite meet their requirements. I also have prints and I wholesale note-cards to shops.

Even though I have been painting for 60 years, I still feel like I am just getting started, rubbing my hands together in excitement for the next piece.