About

4th generation Californian, I grew up in Santa Barbara. My mother was a painter, and my 3 eldest daughters have Art degrees. My youngest loves to draw!! I teach art to children, I believe it to be a fundamental discipline. I paint murals and furniture.

If I may take liberties on a famous quote “God is in the details” (Mies Van Der Rohe), for me it is in Art that I find in the details. Moreover, I believe Art is a Gift, so perhaps Van Der Rohe had it right.

When I gather everyday items to paint for my trompe l’oeil pieces, I am amazed at all the details that exist in even the smallest of things! Everything I paint has shapes, shadows, and small lines and colors that I hadn’t seen until I really looked!

When I teach children how to paint…. my philosophy is “look at (a thing) until you don’t know what you’re looking at…. then paint it!” And that’s what I do myself. Until the last bit of paint is applied, all I see is very abstract to me, then I stand back and there it is…

I fell in love with painting pond life when I bought my first koi. I had to watch them swim and study pictures of them until I realized what I was seeing. I had to stop “seeing” the pond if I wanted to paint the koi. To me the pond is a detail, like a shadow or a shape; the life of the pond is what I see once I am done painting the details.