I am passionate about all things forest, mountain, ocean and desert! I live in Salem, Oregon and travel the Western US with my husband and paint En Plein Air while he hikes and climbs!
When I was 10 years old I started Summer oil painting lessons at a prestigious Museum, the Butler Institute of American Art, in Youngstown, Ohio. Many a Summer morning I rode there on my purple sparkly banana seat bike with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in my basket to enjoy for lunch under one of the huge trees on it's expansive front lawn! Still today, when I open my Pochade box and the smell of oil paints greets me, I am transported back in time to my beginnings as an oil painter and I thank God for giving me that in my life!
Through my high school and college years of art education and exploration, I experienced many other art mediums such as oil pastels, watercolors, and acrylic paints, but when all was said and done I returned to oil paints as my medium of choice.
A turning point in my career was the opportunity to be mentored by Master Artist Tim Tanner while living in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Represented by The Legacy Gallery at that time, I had the opportunity to spend many hours there surrounded by his art as well as a host of other world-class artists, seeing this was the level I wanted to attain with my own art. I went on to study Plein Air painting with tremendous artists Matt Smith, Jim Wodark, and Gretchen Lopez, deciding landscape painting was for me! I have been Juried into shows, had solo exhibitions, gallery representation, won awards and been featured in newspaper articles and magazines. I have been likened to Georgia O'Keeffe as a western woman artist and admire her work having had the opportunity to stay and paint at her beloved Ghost Ranch in Abiquiu, New Mexico, with Eric Rhoads, Publisher of Plein Air Magazine, and a select group of fellow artists. I have been included in Jackson Hole, Wyoming's prestigious National Museum of Wildlife Art's annual Plein Air Etc Invitational co-sponsored by Plein Air Magazine for many years. I had the privilege to participate in "Painting Moran's Yellowstone" while staying on the Lamar Buffalo Ranch in the heart of Yellowstone National Park's buffalo territory where a trip to the restrooms in the middle of the night had to include a flashlight to spot buffalo (or bear!) that might be wandering about before you ran into them...or them, into you!
I am a member of the Oil Painter's of America, the American Artist's Professional League, the National Museum of WildlifeArt, Artists In Action, Salem Art Association and the Laguna Plein Air Painters Association .
My greatest joy...becoming a part of your life through my art!