HOW IT ALL BEGAN: THE ART OF SEEING AND STILL LOOKING
People often ask how my journey as an artist began. Like most journeys, it has taken a few unexpected turns.
I make my home in Pisgah Forest, North Carolina, but my roots are firmly planted in Florida, where I was born and raised. After graduating from Florida State University, I returned to my hometown to teach art at the very high school from which I had graduated. Those five years confirmed my love of teaching and the creative process.
Wanting to continue my education, I moved to Boulder, Colorado to begin work on my master's degree at the University of Colorado and renew my teaching certification. Colorado quickly captured my heart, and what was intended as a temporary move became a new chapter in my life. I accepted a position as Art Consultant for the Cherry Creek School District in Denver. It was there I met my husband while he was completing his residency in Radiology. Life had taken an unexpected direction, but art remained the constant thread that wove everything together.
Art has never simply been what I do; it has been who I am.
I also awakened another passion. I earned my pilot's license, and for many years my husband and I shared the joy of flying together. I was often his co-pilot, but I was equally at home taking the controls myself. Those hours in the air gave me a perspective I could never have found from the ground.
I loved studying the ever-changing designs of the clouds and the remarkable patterns carved into the landscape below. Looking back, I realize those flights taught me to see shape, rhythm, light, and space in ways that eventually found their way into my paintings. There's something about seeing the world from above that changes the way you look at landscape. I like to think that those hours in the sky found their way into my paintings as well.
In 1972, my husband, our two young children, and I returned to Florida. My involvement in the arts continued to grow alongside my studio practice. I was honored to serve as President of the Florida Watercolor Society, where I organized the Society's first conference featuring workshops, demonstrations, and a trade show — an event that continues to this day.
For fifteen years, I directed the Kanuga Water-media Workshops in North Carolina, helping transform the program from a gathering of just fifteen artists into one of the country's premier workshops, serving nearly 300 participants annually.
Throughout my career I have been fortunate to receive opportunities that have broadened both my teaching and artistic practice. I was invited to serve as guest editor of American Artist magazine's special issue, Experimental Approaches to Water-media (Watercolor 2001). I was one of three jurors selected for the National Watercolor Society's International Open Exhibition, where I also participated in the selection of artists receiving National Watercolor Society Signature Membership.
Looking back, every move, every classroom, every workshop, and every painting has been part of the same journey — a lifelong commitment to exploring, teaching, and sharing the creative process.
