-technique: my way of painting can be classified with abstract expressionism (lyrical abstract). That is the language in which I can best express myself at the moment. I work with oil on canvas, sometimes some underlayers of acrylic. I enjoy the texture, malleability, the slowness, the way oil paint reacts ; we work well together. I build my paintings layer by layer. By not mixing colors on my palette, but slowly building up in layers on the canvas, surfaces gain depth and life. Sometimes, in contrast, I make a piece densely painted and opaque. I use contrasts between textures (visible brushstroke, palette knife, I draw forward with nails, or just everything smoothed out), between clean or dirty colors, cool and warm tones. I want a painting from afar to be exciting and inviting; the viewer should want to get right up close to it to discover all the details.

-content: the language I use in my paintings is a reflection, an expression of my life; of my path in the world, as a painter, as a woman, as a mother, as a human being. Events, images, sounds and ideas translate into forms, or literally set me in motion. They are prompts to tell stories, to ask questions. Sometimes I work from an image, color or shape I have in mind; sometimes purely from movement: let me paint the canvas, my brushes, and my body, without any plan. That conversation between “plan” and “flow” produces paintings with vastly different faces. It is a development in my painting that I find very exciting.

I am a musician, viola player,(have been, but that never goes away) and as a musician you hurl vibrations into the air to the listener. Painting for me is putting vibrations on canvas. I’m not in the business of making a nice painting; I’ll see if it’s a good painting. Good is it, if it has something to share, if there is a piece of me in it that makes the viewer vibrate with it. A painting is not finished until I can call it “self-portrait.” When a painting is finished, my personal story is irrelevant. Then the painting (stands) on its own, separate from me. Maybe it will tell the viewer something completely different from me, and that just makes it more exciting!