I paint because it is who I am. Since my earliest memories creating and viewing visual art has excited me and filled me with joy.
My career began with watercolor painting. I was drawn to the organic nature of fluid colors moving across a surface. Living in the mountains of North Carolina I have been surrounded by flowing water and lush landscapes my entire life. Later in my career I started painting in acrylics to expand my visual fluidity by creating layers of vibrant color. Just as I love the sensation of water flowing downstream, I enjoy creating visual and sensory swirls, flows and eddies with paint.
After decades of painting I have evolved into an intuitive artist. I allow each piece to begin without plans, drawings, models, photographs or preconceived ideas. Instead I create a canvas full of colors and textures, randomly layering a paint-filled backdrop with sponges, spattering, pallet knives, collage, imprinting and by pouring paint. I create a canvas full of potential life, but empty of any “subject.”
And then I step back and take a look.
The process is fully intuitive, and never the same twice. Sometimes I almost immediately see something nestled in the color and texture, sometimes I watch the canvas for days, awaiting its imagery to reveal itself. Eventually I am able to grasp what the canvas is showing me and I slowly outline or highlight what appears. I add transparent colors and textures that form a shimmering veil through which the
painting’s subject stirs awake, like dawning life along the bottom of a crystal clear stream. I continue to layer more shading, contour, outline, color, and texture until the painting itself announces that it is complete. I have come to understand and to trust and enjoy this creative process.
I created many of my newest paintings with a process that I call “Flowfusion”. My inspiration for creating this technique came from the organic nature of liquid paint and the fluid look created by the different colors flowing together. Over the past two years I have experimented with the pouring of paints onto plastic and manipulating it with a variety of methods to create unique designs. I let the poured paint dry thoroughly and then cut them into pieces to create intricate collages from the resulting acrylic “skins”. I am currently working on a new series that will look similar to stained glass.