Artist StatementI work with many mediums in my fine art from oil on wood panel low relief paintings, to funky cool, bright, slap you silly color drawings and paintings of animals inspired by dreams. They are all very different but I create them all with the same amount of energy and passion. In 1998 I graduated Cum Laude/President's List receiving my Bachelor of Fine Art (BFA) Degree from Plymouth State University. I have been a creative artist all my life, surrounded by a family of fine craftsmen and women, who's talents never seemed to be limited. It was only natural for me to also be an artist. In 1993 I created a new body of work I coined, "Relief Painting" during my senior thesis at Plymouth State University. While others were painting flat paintings replicating the masters, I was splashing goop, (roof patch from the hardware store) onto wood panels and creating, not only an aweful mess, but wonderful texture, movement, and abstract art with this plastic medium, oil paints and wood blocks. Relief Paintings were first inspired by a fresh mud puddle after a spring rain as I walked across the PSU campus. Before this, it was countless photographs taken of Baker River in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, before this fossils found in my backyard of Helena, Montana. While other students continued on to their classes that day after a fresh rain, I was bent down over a mud puddle amazed and captivated by the sun shining through this little microcosm captured by water. I felt that no one else could possibly understand what I was seeing. It was amazing and this moment stuck with me. I'm a water sign, and love water myself so it is no wonder I have been drawn to water as my inspiration. Water makes everything more vivid and dynamic with motion and light. It's powerful, gentle and fierce all at once. It reveals the many secrets of the contents it holds. My world of inspiration opened up when I would see a tide pool for the first time when I moved to Maine in 1998. Since then tide pools have been my main inspiration but I have always been captivated by rivers, lakes and the ocean as my visions for not only my relief paintings but my photography, and many other aspects of my life and art. I have shown my various works throughout Maine and New Hampshire and will always continue this journey as I continue to express myself through fine art. I am still inspired by my work today but as everything does, it evolves. My Animal Spirit paintings are equally inspirational for me though they are completely different than my other work. Usually acrylic paintings, they are simple bold color and pattern inspired by the true soul of each animal and the characteristics they hold. Animal Spirit paintings are rendered in fantastic color and grace from the strengths they portray in my dreams. Each animal has their own unique strength and characteristics that help guide me in finding my own power, beauty, and direction within. Please check in once and a while to see what is new and what is fresh, or enjoy some of my older works. No matter what I am working on I am always inspired most often by nature and her many colors, textures, patterns, and this motion never ceases to amaze me. Please also see my work online at the "Maine Made" website at: mainemade.com Enter: Eastern River Arts and also Enter: Freebird Forms to see more of my work. --Enjoy. |