I believe an artist's style and approach do not happen spontaneously. It is a history that grows with the child to the mature artist. My history starts with a family that nurtured my budding talent without pushing or dictating. Our family of six (three boys and the baby sister) were an outdoor oriented family and the beauty of the Seattle area opened up to me from an early age. I preferred to be outside making forts and stick houses as my mother who was an extraordinary gardener dug in the planting beds and planted Rhododendrons from seed in little rectangular boxes. Hiking, camping, and sailing were the normal family activities. Horses became my focus at age 8 through high school and I rode for hours by myself in the woods on the outskirts of Seattle. I assume all of these activities is how my appreciation of nature and it's beauty formed and the reason I still feel the need to spend a part of each day walking in the woods.

As early as I can remember my father brought home blank pads and #2 soft pencils from the architecture office and hid them away in his pockets as prizes for me to find. My father's architecture firm was a wonderful place to visit with rulers and drafting tables and lots of room to draw. As a child I dreamed of being his partner in the architectural firm when I grew up, working side by side hunched over plans and having business lunches. It later became apparent that architecture could never be my profession when faced with the challenges of dyslexia and a struggle with math and numbers. I became secretive about my shortcomings, devising a visual counting method of my own in Math to hide my embarrassment and make it through school. During my high school years I found comfort in the art building during my free periods. It was a place I could feel truly comfortable and get positive results. I was counseled to pursue graphic design in college. I excelled in graphic design and anything art related graduating Cum Laude from Washington State University.

I entered the design field by moving to San Francisco to work for the Internationally known package designer Primo Angeli who was a tremendous influence on my approach to getting ideas on paper. He used 6B soft pencils and sketched fast dramatic loose roughs on tracing paper then handed them to his designers to form into type image and graphics. To this day my drawer is full of 6B's and I still use this technique for my own initial sketches. It became a part of my developing methodical approach.

After years of working for various firms as designer or art director and with the fast approaching onset of computers I made the decision to redirect my career to commercial illustration. The vision of sitting at a computer held no appeal but image making did. I returned to academics for my Masters Degree at Academy of Art University in San Francisco. After graduating with honors I soon became a busy illustrator taking anything that came through the door. Illustration requires a "show me what we will get before we get it" approach. I loved the look and method of the preliminary steps of sketches, color roughs, technique roughs. I was good at what I did for the art directors I worked for because I had been in their shoes and could interpret their sketches as well as their comments. Again computers began to muscle their way in to my plans and the appearance of computer generated illustration and stock illustration began to swallow up my fellow illustrators. More illustration was being done in house. I hung in there but it was clear that I either had to get a job as a computer illustrator or find another direction. By this time I had developed a painterly style working in oil that crossed over to fine art and I began to supplement the dwindling illustration market with work in the fine art print market and showing in galleries. The transition was a blessing and fine art became my full time focus.

Today I have returned to my roots as "the daughter of an architect". I build each painting like a builder with the skills I developed as a graphic designer and illustrator. I take the mental vision, sketch with soft lead, photograph my subjects and create color work ups in small format. From there, having worked out the problems in my small roughs, I am free to express myself in my large paintings with brushstroke and fresh nuances of color. I have built a painting from a blank white canvas. My paintings have structure and graphic elements that act as building blocks to move the eye and create patterns of light, value and color. My love of landscape and how the climate changes affect nature as a subject matter harkens back to my childhood activities and love of the out doors.

When my father was in his late eighties he shared with me that he had always wanted to be a painter but felt he did not have the talent. Although I disagree with his opinion of his talent perhaps in some twist of family history I am fulfilling a little of his dream just as he fueled mine. The architect's daughter is a builder in her own right and I am my father's painter.