Life has many bright moments of joy, love, happiness, accomplishment and growth which we liberally project to the world, while shielding our darkness from nearly everyone-the more difficult feelings of loss, depression, disappointment, anger, failure and fatigue-so that we don’t feel them and they seem to go away. Only they stay inside, under the surface and simmer alone. But the truth is that many of us have similar feelings, each produced by our individual experiences. Healing happens when we connect with others with similar experiences and we realize we are not alone; and when we can remember the recent and distant moments of those bright and dark times as we moved through them.

This inspires me to paint images that evoke my feelings–anger and frustration literally stomped out in acrylic; the harmony of a loving couple captured in meandering, intertwined curves in charcoal; the sense of freedom of a bird image flying into the sunset of a watercolor.

I draw from several sources of my life as if creating a diary in paintings. I tap into conscious feelings; unconscious feelings and situations that come from my dreams or evolve from the initially unguided paint on the canvas; emotional reactions I have to personal situations and interactions with others; and something that starts with a realistic image with my personal feelings added, what I call “interpretive realism”. Sharing these paintings is an experience that grounds me and feeds my soul.