“Travel is the distance we need from ourselves to see the world anew.”
                                            Thomas Paquette

Painting is a pleasure I haven’t earned and don’t deserve. It takes my middle class conventional rebellion and splats it on the canvas with a myriad of inappropriate brushes and brush strokes. Mutiny continues with a saturation of robust and vibrant- in your face- colors. The figurative subjects encompass the outsized canvas. Decorative women dancing or eating chocolate, an analogy for nothing, except communicating living.

Who are these women? Me, myself and who I wish to be. These women are my eighty something, forever young mother and my one and only daughter. The two women I love deeply.

I travel to find the distance between myself and the world. Sometimes this requires a plane ticket, sometimes a changed point of view, much more costly than the ticket. My paintings are the consequence of both of these journeys. I defy the conventions of portability, in Australia or in my garden; my canvases are framed by 40 x 60 inches of pine wood. This impracticality stems from being told it can’t be done - one too many times.

I don’t do small pencil sketches – no patience – I am anxious to see where the brush will take me traveling from my mind to the canvas. I am always amazed to find where the passage has taken me. I don’t do oils – no patience – I am anxious to finish – acrylics serve my style and the freedom to move quickly and dance with the colors without getting my toes muddy. But, at times, I meander through the colors and find an intimate journey within the shapes so much like when I wander on the beach finding pebbles miles from my point of origin. Then the anxiety to finish is relative to the pleasure of the experience of the journey.

I have been told it takes courage to buy my art. That makes me proud to know I sell to courageous souls.

“A number 5 sable brush, a tube of paint and a dream can take you anywhere?”

"Decoration as such is not too highly esteemed in contemporary art. We tend to forget that a picture may at the time be decorative and have communicating power."

-From the essay by Daniel Cotton Rich accompanying G.O'Keefe's exhibition at the Worchester Art Museum.

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