About the Artist

"I'm still trying to hang color on stories."

I love color. I have been drawn to it my whole life, from the melon-colored yarn I chose for my first knitting project to the pivotal decisions I make when trying to give a painting that elusive wow factor.

I studied art in the San Francisco Bay Area during a time when color was the focus and subject matter was often subordinate. Many of my instructors taught color before drawing, before perspective, and before subject matter.

The German-born abstract expressionist Hans Hofmann taught at UC Berkeley in the early 1930s, before eventually establishing his influential school in New York. I wasn't there in his day, of course, but his ideas about the push and pullof color continued to influence the Berkeley art department for decades. They have stayed with me throughout my painting life.

I look for stories that are comfortable and familiar to me: someone reading a book, an easy chair, a woman writing in a journal, a parent reading to a child, or an open French door leading into a colorful garden.

I suppose my attachment to the recognizable world prevents me from becoming a completely abstract painter. But I won't hesitate to make a color decision that departs from reality if I believe it improves the harmony and balance of a painting.

I don't claim to be a color specialist. I simply love entering that zone of exploration, searching for colors that will live together harmoniously on a flat canvas while telling a story of rest, tranquility, and rejuvenation.

I think of myself as an explorer who needs a solid foundation on which to hang the wildness of the color spectrum.

I've been fortunate enough to weather many years of change: different economic conditions, raising a family of sons and pets, and making homes in Napa Valley and now Long Beach, California.

Through it all, I've continued painting.

And I'm still trying to hang color on stories.

Color lasts. Color encourages. Color inspires. And color is a language we all know.