Oil on wood
80” x 36”
I began my career in art as a ceramist, and for 35 years, I belonged to the Colorado Potter’s Guild. My pieces were largely utilitarian in nature, until I discovered the salt-firing hand-built process.
In 2002, my husband and I purchased a sailboat and outfitted her for blue water sailing. We sailed from Virginia to the British Virgin Islands, a trip of 1500 miles, straight down the Atlantic in 11 days. We sailed four of those days in gale-force storms. At one point, we were 1200 miles off shore. You are never frightened in these circumstances, because you are too tired or too busy to worry about it. Since then we have spent about five months a year in the Caribbean.
Before we moved on to our boat, I started taking watercolor lessons in Denver Colorado, and have since joined the Colorado Watercolor Society. I have now taught for ten years. I have discovered that creating art is a wonderful thing to share – exciting, healing, and restful, all at the same time.
Artist’s Statement
Water. As a sailor, a watercolor artist, and an observing human being, I am drawn to water: the many colorful layers, character and movement of water. It nourishes and kills. Soothes and disturbs. We need it. We are it.
But it doesn’t stop there. The multitude of colors that water hurls at you, as it splashes over rocks in the sun, or washes up on a beach, or pools on a cloudy day, creates such a strong desire that I want to capture it on canvas. Impossible. But not from lack of trying.