Art Experiences, Skills, and Interests
I earned my bachelor of arts degree at Hope College, Holland, MI in 1968. My public school teaching career began immediately and spanned 25 years at Grand Haven Junior High in Grand Haven, MI. In teaching art, my skills, interests, and experiences were varied, including drawing, painting, sculpture, textile processes, printmaking, and many more. Those skills and interests continue today. Thus the Mixed Media designation for my work.
While living and teaching in West Michigan, I entered the annual West Michigan Regional Exhibitions, with some awards, at Muskegon Museum of Art, Muskegon, MI. There were also gallery relationships with the Corcoran Gallery in Muskegon, C2C Gallery, Gallery Uptown in Grand Haven, and the Cain Gallery in Saugatuck, MI.
After Retirement
In 1993, after my retirement, "vacationing" in Florida became "residing " in Florida.
I exhibited in Arts Fest, Martin County Council for the Arts shows in 2000 and 2001.
I received the Best of Show Award at the Armory Art Center Wearable Art Fashion Show in West Palm Beach, FL in 1997.
For some years, my gallery affiliations included Habitat in West Palm Beach; Fish House Art Center, Stuart, FL, and 2nd Street Art, Ft. Pierce, FL. At the same time, I was invited to be in shows in Grand Haven at the Gallery Uptown.
Currently, I am an exhibiting member of the St. Lucie Cultural Alliance, Ft. Pierce, FL; member of the Art Associates of Martin County, Ft. Pierce Art Club, national and local Surface Design Associations.
Numerous private collectors are enjoying my work. Corporate collections include The Knoll Group, Muskegon Community College, and Muskegon Museum of Art, Grand Haven Area Community Foundation, Grand Haven Public Schools, Holland (MI) Community Hospital, and Health Care, Inc, Lansing, MI.
My years of travel took me throughout the U.S. and Canada, Central America, South America, Europe, China, the former USSR, Asia, Australia, New Zealand, and Cuba. I continue to travel whenever possible. Artists and artisans in cultures all over the world continue to fascinate me and influence my studio work.
My Inspiration
Early childhood family travels from Indiana to the West brought me face-to-face with dramatic landscapes in formations and colors that amazed me.
"I couldn't believe my eyes! Rusty orange cliffs and lavender dirt!"
The amazing landscapes and their primeval processes were home to ancient cultures whose ruins added to the mystery and wonder. All of this had a profound and lasting influence on my art. In the studio, intuitive decisions about lines, shapes, and colors come from that vast subconscious resource of travel in the West. My media are layered, scrubbed, and overpainted just as sedimentary rocks were layered and eroded by ancient oceans and scoured into fantastic forms.
Remembered images of canyon walls and ancient ruins inspire my abstract composition.
My Journey
"I started making a blouse, and it became a canoe."
I laughed when I read that quote but then realized I relate to that.
At the beginning of my art making, if there is a preconceived idea in mind, it may, even probably, will change completely before I finish.
"Making art puts me in a ZONE. That zone is where my materials and I are on a journey together—destination unknown or sometimes only vaguely planned. My focus is on the moment, on the brush or pencil stroke, or the thread passing through fabric, or the paint seeping into folds of crushed paper. I'm on a fascinating journey."
The work itself leads me in directions I don't seem to consciously choose. I trust that I'll recognize my arrival at the final destination of a finished work.