A flutter in my belly pulls me into my studio. I sense how quickly time passes and how precious life is, and I begin to paint. Soon the painting unfurls itself in layers of color and contrast – form, light and space become a landscape carved from the passage of time.
Ideas come to me from our common well of human needs and experiences: how we relate to time, to change, and to mortality. As I paint, I strive to convey a sense of life’s beauty and meaning through the messages I see within nature. I also create artwork as a way to be visible – and to connect with people who, like myself, thrive on stories that lie beyond the surface of things.
Walking with my husband and dogs in the West Kootenay outdoors, I see stories in the surrounding landscape. I see lightning strike a tree and I think about how a forest needs fire to flourish, just as we need hardship to become our best beings. In my imagination I see a tree, struck by lightning, transforming into birds. With this image in my heart and mind’s eye, I feel that flutter in my belly. I return to my studio and begin again to paint.
