About the Artist
About the Artist
I came to Art through poetry about 15 years ago. Although I had earned two degrees in literature, being an artist of any kind was barely on my radar until midlife. At first, poetry seemed the natural way, the only way, to process certain experiences of life that needed careful consideration.
In 1998, I launched an educational web site for teens and young adults called Lyricalworks: Symbols, Myths, Dreams and Stories. The web site explores the sources of creativity and the search for meaning that is the special mission of the young and young at heart. Lyricalworks has also been the home of some of my poetry and is cited on numerous school web sites and online learning sites. I began studying drawing and painting in Southern California ten years ago. I was introduced to plein air painting early in my studies, and I consider that fortunate. Exploring Nature’s color, symbols, and imagery outdoors imposes the kind of time constraint that force the artist to bring intuitive processes to bear on the problem. Chasing light, atmosphere, weather, and even the season helped me think more about the essence of the painting at hand and to develop my personal style and response. At this writing, in 2010, I am making a transition to spending more time painting in the studio so that I can explore the answers to that question further. My interest in mythology and universal symbols is beginning to assert itself even as I continue to study Nature's ways. Like Jung, I believe the wide-ranging and full-bodied contents of the individual and collective psyche may offer us a path of wisdom as we cross over the wasteland of modern life to create something new. To explore in visual images and color and pigment our universal search for meaning and spiritual connection is an amazing joy and privilege. It is also our birthright, fought for and passed down to us by our many ancestors. I am convinced they still live within us and there is much we can share, learn, and experience together.