My work is influenced by an early love of nature fostered by growing up in rural western Pennsylvania. The fields, the woods, to these I ran for consolation, nurture.   Nature inspires me still.   Her color combinations are always perfect; her beauty, unsurpassed.

There is an also an Asian touch in my paintings.   My husband is Japanese; we married and lived in Japan, and even after coming to California stayed for many years steeped in the customs of that land.

I avoided art in school, thinking like so many others that it was a “talent” some people were born with.   But one day to please a friend, I signed up with her for a tole painting class.   There was so much tracing.   “Why can’t we just put the pencil lines down directly?” I asked.   And so I found watercolor.

These days, I try only to paint subjects that really appeal to me.   I start with a pleasing placement of the objects.   If the composition doesn’t work, no clever technique can fix it.   Then by the flow of the lines, I try to make the viewer’s eye move throughout the painting.   Values from light to dark become more and more important to me.   And color, (the fun part!) I still don’t understand, maybe I never will.   But paintings seem to have minds of their own.   They say, “Put yellow here, blue there…”    And I do.