Artist Statement

Background and Education

In the early 1970s, my parents established an art school and gallery in Danvers, Massachusetts.  Our family life was centered around a community of artists and a revolving schedule of weekend workshops, 10-week programs and always upcoming exhibits. Despite this early immersion in the arts, I opted to pursue an education in economics, public administration, and the law, following which I began a career in public finance.

A passion for the arts remained a growing and increasingly important part of my life, however, leading me to first gradually, and then much more proactively enroll in art classes whenever and wherever I could.  I would go on to spend nearly 10 years in the continuing education program at Massachusetts College of Art, completing a variety of coursework in art history, drawing, painting, design, fashion, and bookbinding.  Some years later, in tandem with a difficult time in my life, I developed an equally demanding passion for landscape gardening, completing the Massachusetts Master Gardener program in 2012, and delving into more courses with a new focus on botanical drawing.

Creative Process

Drawing for me is most akin to a journalling process rather than a series of finite conclusions.  My personal artistic journey began with very small colored pencil drawings, incorporating geometric shapes over-layered in oil and chalk pastel.  I often begin a drawing inspired by an impression and/or feeling, analogous to a poem, but from there it unfolds by more of an intuitive layering process. My medium of choice is colored pencil and pastel, but I have been incorporating acrylic and watercolor paint and recycled materials.  I may start with a geometric under-drawing and finish with an abstract color composition, or begin with a geometric framework and allow the color composition to evolve without a predetermined plan. In that way, a finished drawing may differ significantly from my intent at its beginning.  Compelling at present is the use of color and form within a geometric design, and the push/pull between two- and three-dimensional composition.  Alternatively, I enjoy botanical drawing in pencil, primarily graphite.

Giorgio Morandi, Josef Albers, Hans Hofmann, Joan Mitchell, Mark Rothko, Andrea Modigliani, Ellsworth Kelly, and Piet Mondrian are a few of the artists from whom I have drawn significant insight.  

Most recently I look for opportunities to utilize recycled materials in my drawings in unexpected ways, and have begun moving and thinking more in these terms as a creative direction, building upon my interests in color, geometric form and two- and three-dimensional composition.