My passion is for painting people and my hope is to reveal something special about that person or persons I can bring to a painting.  Every person has been created by God with a uniqueness and beauty and   I love to try to discover that beauty, that uniqueness and to tell a little bit of each person’s story in my paintings.

I began painting in the 1980's in Northern California by creating portraits in pastels of my friend’s children, but it was not until 2013 that I decided to really take my painting out to the public and call myself an artist.   I have spent many years since then painting in oils yet I also enjoy painting with my pastels, especially in plein air.  With oil, I love the expressive strokes and depth I can get on the canvas or board and with pastels, the brilliant colors and details that can be achieved.

I'm a family person at my core and a lot of my inspiration has come from photographs that my maternal grandfather took on a world tour in 1923-1924.  I feel a special connectedness with these photographs and especially the people in them.  To paint them brings honor to my grandfather, the people in these far-away places and their time on this earth.  I count it a great privilege to bring some of their lives to my canvasses.

My paintings usually begin with an idea or vision of where I want them to go, but they almost never make it to that place. As I begin to layer in paint or pastels, texturing as I go along, they take on a life of their own and start to reveal a different story.  I paint using an abstract realism and expressionistic style as that is how the story plays in my imagination. The process never disappoints me as I discover much more than just a face on a canvas.  My hope is that you enjoy my paintings and that they would create something inside you that allows you to discover your own stories.

 I have studied with artists Scott Burdick, Susan Lyon, Jill Steenhuis, Lori Putnam, Carolyn Anderson, Albert Handell,  Graydon Parrish, Desmond O'Hagen, to name a few. 

"Precision yields to expression. Realism surrenders to intuition. Feeling becomes fundamental. Color submits to the artist. The subjects become light, air, and atmosphere. This is impressionism."